


the run and go

by deserts



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Depression, F/M, Gen, Implied Relationships, Innuendo, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Abuse, Post-Sburb, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reconciliation, Recreational Drug Use, Seizures, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Slow Burn Reconciliation, Strider Manpain, Underage Drug Use, Vomiting, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2019-08-23 21:21:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 48
Words: 312,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16626638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deserts/pseuds/deserts
Summary: The universe spits you out straight onto the roof where you entered the game, and you catch yourself with your face.Davesprite struggles with being the Other Dave when no one else seems to care. Bro is back from the dead, and the Strider apartment is about two times too crowded for everyone involved. Reconciliation takes time and effort, and forgiveness is a thing to be earned.You have to try, and when that's not enough, you have to try HARDER.





	1. the thing of it all is,

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, it's one of Those post-sburb fanfics where they don't go to a new world, but land back in the same shitty world where they started. I would say if you hate Bro Strider, this fic isn't for you. I think I might be a Bropologist. Less Better Bro, more Bro-Learning-To-Be-Better. Sorry, guys. Also future warning tags for relationships that may involve content that will make people uncomfortable. Anyway, I haven't written Homestuck in literal years, so it might be a little OOC. I hope not though. Here I am! Hope it's okay!
> 
> ps, this fic was written pre-epilogue and will continue down a path as if those events never happened (obviously), and for better or worse, the concepts introduced or explored there within will not be mentioned nor executed here.

The universe shits you out straight onto the roof where you entered the game, and you catch yourself with your face.

The pain of your tooth cracking in half is nothing in comparison to the pounding of your head, and you lie there for a good while just. Waiting.

The pain doesn’t pass, nor does the throbbing headache, and you roll over with a sigh. The air is a warm breeze on your face, the stench of burning gravel and city smog filtered through a bloodied nose. It takes a moment before you can fully grasp where you are, and then you frantically push yourself up, ignoring the searing pain of the sun on your exposed eyes.

Holy shit. You'd know that shitty skyline anywhere.

You laugh.

You are separated you are whole you are broken you’re reborn you have legs and you laugh.

You remember the soul crushing weight of being a sprite, of having your own feelings suppressed and ground down until you were no longer sad and you laugh.

You are Davesprite. You are Dave. You are whole, and you are alive.There’s coughing and choking to your left, and you crane your head to see - “Dave?”

He springs to his feet on reflex, catches his foot on his cape, and immediately collapses on his ass.

You laugh again. “Nice going, asshole,” you tell him, and it’s like he’s seeing you for the first time.

“Wha--” He looks you up and down, and his eyes are hidden by his shades, but his mouth is hanging wide open. “What the fuck happened to you?”

You can’t think clearly without your fucking shades, but he’s still staring and you’re annoyed. “I don’t fucking know dude, I got my shit pushed in by Lord English, there’s really not much to say on the matter.”

He just shakes his head, mouth still open like a bass trying to catch flies. You think. You’re almost sure that's how the metaphor goes.

There’s a groan from somewhere behind you, and by the time your head has turned, Dave’s already there, hunching over Dirk and talking to him in a low voice, helping him upright. There’s something tender between them and if you could feel anything but exhilaration for being alive right now, you might be jealous that you don’t get to have that.

Dirk tilts his head at you and then presses his lips together. “Dave,” he says, and his voice is a controlled calm. “That’s quite the recoloring you got goin’ there.”

You have no idea what he means, but he nods down at you and you finally take a moment to look at your hands.

Your hands that have no claws.

Your hands that, clawless, are tanner than you’ve ever seen them, spattered with freckles that dance all the way up your arms. Your tan, freckled hands raise to tug at your hair, and burnished gold falls into your eyes.

“What the fuck,” is what comes out.

“Looks like the sprite thing had some consequences,” Dave says.

You stare at your hands. “What the fuck.”

“Your kernel was orange, right?” Dirk is saying, but it all kind of fades away because you cannot stop staring at your hands. Is this gonna be your life from now on? You’re just a carbon copy recolor of the Real Dave? You can’t ever be Just Dave ever again. You’ll always be Orange Dave, like you’re stuck in a game of Mortal Combat for the rest of eternity.

You flinch when a hand drops onto your shoulder, and Dave steps back, palms up. “Hey, whoa. Sorry.”

“S’fine,” you say, lamely.

“We’re going inside to see what the fuck is up,” Dave says, jerking a thumb over his shoulder towards the exit door. “You should come, it’s hot as hell up here.”

Oh. Yeah, he’s got a point. You go to push yourself upright and --

immediately collapse on the ground.

“Dude, don’t mess around.” Dave nudges you with his shoe.

“I’m not,” you grunt, smacking his leg, and you try to climb to your feet again. You’re starting to think that maybe there’s something actually wrong with you. "Just fucking help me up."

 

You see him over Dave’s shoulder when he tries to haul you up, right before your legs collapse beneath you. He’s tucked under the air conditioning unit, long legs sticking out in front of him, and you’d know those ugly fucking shoes anywhere.

“Bro,” you rasp, and there’s nothing dignified about the way you shove Dave off you. “Dude, behind the AC, it’s Bro.”

Dave freezes in place but you are in a panic. It’s pathetic, trying to push yourself to get across the roof, but you get a couple feet in before Dirk is sweeping you up bridal style and carrying you over to your bro-dad-dickhead combo.

Bro is pale as hell, blood staining the corner of his mouth and hair sticking up every which way. His hat and shades are missing. Guess not everything made it. You think he’s dead for half a minute, feel cold water flood your veins, think “not again”, and then you see his chest moving, stuttering little jerks like he can’t breathe.

Dave hangs back, but you don’t care. You watched this fucker die before and you’re not doing it again, so when Dirk sets you down, you basically crawl on top of him, shaking his shirt and smacking at his face.

“Hey. Hey asshole, wake up. Bro. Dude. Come the fuck on.” He doesn't move.

“Dave-” Dirk starts awkwardly, stops. You’re not listening.

“I know you’re in there, dickhead, I can see you. You’ve got a fuckton to answer for.” You poke him in the chest, shake him roughly, and slap his face a few more times. Y’know. For good measure. Nothing seems to work until you go to brush the hair out of his eyes with a sigh. “Bro, c’mon, please.”

Before your hand can finish the delicate gesture, it’s caught in a vice grip, and you’ve never been so still as you are when you see his half-lidded eyes leering at you. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing,” he says, and you can’t help it. You laugh.

“There you are, you colossal asshole. Was worried you were gonna die on me. Again.”

He stares for a beat and then lets you go, and you back off so he can breathe, sitting back on his legs because, fun surprise, yours still aren’t working.

It takes him a minute, and even then he looks like he’s having trouble breathing, like he can’t quite get a grip on his surroundings. He looks from you, to Dave, to Dirk, and back again, like he doesn’t know you, and that scares the shit out of you.

“Bro?” you call, but it’s like he’s in a trance, like he doesn’t even know where he is, and then his hand twitches. “Bro...?”

You blink and Dirk is dragging you back by your shirt, cursing. “Shit, Dave, no come here, he’s--”

You blink and Bro falls to the side, his entire body convulsing, and you hear yourself shout but it might be Dave and all three of you are swearing and somebody says “should we call an ambulance?” and you can’t do anything but stare at your not-quite-dead brother as he shakes and twitches, drool pouring out of his mouth, eyelids fluttering and pupils blown wide.

Nobody calls an ambulance.

Bro stops seizing, but his chest keeps giving those shaky little stutters, and you wonder if he’s dying again. You poke him in the leg, just to be sure. Poke, poke. When you don’t get a response, you shove at him. “Stop,” he grunts. Okay, not dying. Cool, cool.

You are totally freaking out.

Dave shoves something into your hands and you realize it’s your shades, and you put them on with trembling fingers.

“We should get inside and contact the others,” Dirk says eventually. His arms are still wrapped around you in this gentle, careful way that makes you want to cry. God, when is the last time someone actually wanted to hug you?

“Okay,” you whisper. You don’t want to leave Bro here, though. You say as much.

Dave sighs so hard it’s surprising he doesn’t cough up a lung. “Dave--”

“Davesprite,” you correct. You’re not Just Dave anymore. You get that now.

Dave gives you a scathing look that's all Rose. “Dude, do you think any of us are capable of hauling his fat ass down the stairs?”

You glare at him. “I don’t care, I can --”

“Your legs aren’t even working right now. You ain’t doing shit.”

“Dave,” Dirk says softly, lifting a hand. When he talks to you, it’s like he’s addressing a child, but his arms are warm and you’re too upset to care. “I can take you down first and then Dave ‘n I will come back for him, okay?”

He squeezes your hand, and you cave. “Okay.”

Dave starts to protest, but you and Dirk both look at him and he shuts up.

You try not to think about the fact that you can’t feel Dirk’s arm under your legs, make a crack at his Princely demeanor to deflect. You feel like a winner when he goes pink around the ears, cracks a smile. It’s cool he does that. You don’t really remember that shape on Bro’s mouth.

Dave stays up on the roof, watching you go, and you see him start to kneel by Bro’s head as Dirk carries you down the stairs.

Dirk sets you down carefully on the futon and you give him a shaky thanks, attempt a smile. He gives you an awkward little nod, opens his mouth like he wants to say something, and then takes off before he can start. Maybe he’s a bit more like Bro than you thought.

The apartment looks basically the same to you, Bro’s Xbox tucked under the TV, the controllers thrown haphazardly on the floor the way you remember. There are some (what you assume to be) Dirk-like touches-- a weird horse statue in the kitchen made from what looks like coat hangers, and fenestrated windows littering the floor -- but most of it seems to be Bro’s ninja bullshit.

There are, much to your dismay, still puppets all over, but they’re more a minor annoyance than anything, and don’t bother you like you thought they would. You had three years on the ship to get over your shitty fear, and most of your bitterness and malcontent with Bro was buried with his corpse on LOHAC. There’s shitty swords and the scent of stale Doritos, but the whole place is still pretty much clinically sanitized. You wipe a finger along the edge of the table. It comes back clean.

And tan.

You’re kind of freaking out about that part. As far as you can tell, you’ve got all the right bits and pieces. The freckles are new, but Dirk and Rose both have freckles, even if you never did, so that’s probably just. The melanin increase. Yeah. Your hair, on the other hand, is fucking atrocious, but honestly you can kind of handle it. You don’t look like Dave, so much. It only hurts a little bit. At least no one will confuse the two of you.

The legs are a little bit more worrisome, but maybe if you talk to Nanna or you know, a real fucking doctor, they’ll know what’s up.

Dirk and Dave practically kick the door down and you get to watch in amusement as they stagger in, Bro’s arms over their shoulders, dead weight against them. It’s funny, in a way, watching them struggle to lift your brother, taller by almost half a foot, but it’s also kinda sad, and scary. Bro looks dead. It’s extremely unsettling.

Dirk slips out from under the weight first, and Dave basically shoves him onto you, his body flopping onto the futon like--

like a puppet.

His head lands in your lap and you don’t complain, just turn his face to the side so he can breathe, brush aside the hair falling in his eyes. It feels uncomfortably tender, but the guy just came back to life, he deserves at least a little bit of affection from somebody. Might as well be you. No one else is volunteering.

You give him a solid pat on the head. Pat pat. He grunts.

Dave sits on the coffee table and stares at him. You pretend not to be extremely uncomfortable, keep your lips pursed and fingers curled into the back of Bro’s head.  
Dirk gives Dave a squeeze on the shoulder and then just stands there staring into space, which you assume means he’s talking to his glasses or whatever. You wonder if AR made it, too.

“You don’t have to treat him like that,” Dave whispers to you.

You frown, narrow your eyes. What the fuck is his game? “I’m not doing anything.”

“Dude, you’re mothering the shit out of this asshole.”

“So?” You shrug. Dave doesn’t get it. You knew he wouldn’t.

He shifts and it’s obvious he’s uncomfortable. “So he doesn’t deserve it.”

You look down at Bro’s ears, the way they curve up to an almost elven point. Rose got her ears from him.

“He treated us like shit,” Dave continues. “I’m pretty sure he hated us.”

“Cal hated us,” you say. Bro flinches.

“Dave -”

“Davesprite.”

“Dave,” he plows on, “you can’t pretend what happened to us isn’t fucked up, and we don’t even know he’s actually gone for good.”

“It wouldn’t matter if he was,” you mutter. “Probably still find a way to come back.”

Dave hums. “D’you think Cal ever --” Bro flinches again.

“Don’t say its name,” you hiss. You hate that he’s right. You hate that you can’t argue.

Dave opens his mouth to protest, but looks down at the way Bro’s body is wound tight, like a bowstring ready to snap. His jaw clicks shut.

You give Bro another aggressive pat. His eyes remain closed. Ugh, this is weird.

“Do you think he deserves a chance?” Dave asks eventually.

“No,” you sigh. Shrug. “Yes. I don’t know.”

“Yeah.” Dave gives a heaving breath, shoulders slumping down. He cards a hand through his own hair, hides his face in his hands. “Me neither.”

Everyone is back, in some way or another. Dirk contacted Roxy first, and you’re more than relieved to know Rose is okay. There’s only one of her, and you guess her Sprite didn't make it back, which is kind of fucked up, but you can't bring it up without sounding ungrateful, so you don't.

You’re a little worried about John and Jade, about if Nanna came back, too, but you don’t ask, because Dirk probably wants to talk to his friends on his own. You can talk later. Shit, you should probably be writing up some mad long apologies to ease the process. You’re so fucking screwed.

 

-*-

  
The first night finds you tucked up on the futon with Bro, bed folded down so he can perch on the edge and you can be as far away as possible while still being close enough if something happens. (Dirk had offered to take your place, still tenderly cautious with you like he was with Dave, but you had declined. You buried the fucker, you’re mostly at peace with his fucked up shit, and you’re also absolutely paranoid he’s going to die again.)

You face the kitchen and trace the outline of the counters, the microwave, the weird horse, illuminated by the window. You listen to the hum of the fridge, the tick tick tick of the analog clock, the sound of Bro breathing in and out, in and out, somewhere behind you.

You can’t sleep.

It feels weird, being back. You spent three years soaring through time and space on a big fucking boat, in a place outside your realm of knowledge as a sprite. You’ve had sleepovers on this futon, watched movies and fell asleep with nothing outside the window but a glowing flow of lava and turning gears.

You remember telling Jade you didn’t want to date anymore in the kitchen, can still see the way she crackled green all the way down to her core.

You remember being miserable.

You still are, kinda, but you think you don’t mind it as much.

It feels weird being yourself again, and you wonder if you would be okay, just being “Dave.” If it’ll ever feel normal.

Texas in April is already hot as hell, and you lie in your shirt, sans pants, and miss LOHAC. You wonder if Dave and Dirk have fallen asleep yet. You wonder if you could pester John or Jade. If they’d respond. Better not take any chances. They’ve probably got a lot on their plate as is. And they’d probably rather talk to the real Dave, anyway.

“Hey Bro?”

You don’t think he’ll answer. He hasn’t spoken since he woke up, and Jesus dicks, what if he dies in the night, what if you should have called the fucking ambulance after all, what if--

“What d’you want.” Bro’s tone doesn’t invite response, but he’s never really been much of a question guy.

“Just wondering if you were awake.” You don’t apologize. He wouldn’t appreciate it.

He only hums.

“What are you thinking about?”

That startles what you’re almost positive could have been a laugh out of him. “Christ, kid,” is what he says.

“I miss LOHAC,” you tell him, because you don’t have anyone else to tell.

“Lohac.”

“Land of Heat and Clockwork.”

“That the bigass volcano you dropped us in?”

“Haha. Yeah.”

“Can’t say I feel the same way.”

“My bad, then. I kinda buried you there.”

“What’d you do, drop me in the fucking lava?”

“... Sorta.”

“Touching. This is a place you miss.”

You try to remember talking to Bro this much outside a rap battle. You fail. “It wasn’t... I hated it, at first. Because of you, I guess. It was hot and noisy and all I heard day in and day out for months was screeching metal and --” Calsprite, but you don’t say that. “It was like my own personal hell.”

“Guess I’m not winning any guardian of the year awards.” He doesn’t say it with any measure of bitterness, like he doesn’t care. He probably doesn’t.

“Nah.” You roll over to face his back, watch his side move up and down as he breathes quietly. You don’t think you’ve ever actually seen him sleep before. “Your technique was a major shit show.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to realize that now.”

“Kinda surprising you didn’t realize it sooner.” It’s not, really.

“Yeah, I --” He cuts himself off and you tense up, watch the lines of his shoulders for movement. “I don’t know.”

“What are thinking about?” you ask again, when you lapse into silence.

“How nice it’d be if my kid would shut the fuck up and let me sleep.”

“Sorry,” you whisper, and fuck, he’s right. You just got back, he had a fucking _seizure_ , he’s probably wiped.

He sighs, and you barely stop yourself from shooting out of the bed when he rolls over. His eyes are exposed, and you feel stupid that your shades are still on (sprite habits die hard, apparently), so you take them off and tuck them under your pillow.

You nearly jump out of your skin when he finally answers, after staring at your for a long moment. "Blurry."

“What?” It comes out embarrassingly high-pitched.

“I just keep thinking about how everything feels blurred,” he says, sighs out his nose. “Like my damn head’s been filled with cotton for so long it’s forgotten how to work properly. Hollow. Confused. Tired. Empty.” He reaches up and a hand and rubs at his eyes. You pretend you didn’t flinch and he doesn’t say anything. “That good enough for you?”

“It’s more of a how than a what,” you manage, and the look he gives you is pure aggravation.

“I don’t do feelings,” he grunts.

You shrug. Thirteen-year-old Dave would be baffled by your gall. “I kinda get the feeling nobody in this family really _does_ anything normal or healthy, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.”

Bro scoffs and rolls onto his back to stare at the ceiling. He’s quiet, and you think maybe that’s the end of your conversation. When he does answer, it’s soft, a little gravelly. “I'm thinking it’s pretty fucked up that I’m here right now.”

“Like on the futon?”

“Like alive, mostly.”

You stare at his profile, purple bruising beneath his eyes and the sharp angle of his nose, the bump from a break that’s been there as long as you can remember. He looks tired, older than you remember, but still too young to be a parent.

“You don’t want a second chance?” It comes out so soft you almost don’t realize you said it out loud.

A puff of air escapes his lips and you swear for a second you see him smile. “That’s one helluva loaded question, Dave.”

You don’t know how to respond to that. He hasn’t called you by name in years. It’s odd. “You seem better,” you say instead. “Than you were earlier.” You hope he doesn’t bring up the coddling.

He doesn’t. He’s thoughtful for a moment, rubs his eyes again like there’s something stuck in them. “Yeah, it was always quieter at night.”

“You mean --” You choke on the name. _HEEHEEHAAHAAHOOHOO_ echoes in the back of your mind. “I didn’t know he. It. Talked. To you.”

Bro just hums, squints at the ceiling like it’s wronged him.

He wouldn’t know, you realize. Lord English wasn’t part of his timeline; he was long gone and buried by the time Jolly Green showed his ugly mug. For him, the puppet that haunted your childhood was a separate, albeit ominous entity. You wonder how much he knows. “You’re not still hearing him, are you?” It sounds small to your ears. Meek.

You see his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “Go to bed, Dave.”

You open your mouth to protest but he rolls back over, and you’re faced with the wall of his shoulders that tells you end of discussion.

It’s not like he’s ever said goodnight to you before, but you kinda wish he would, anyway.


	2. the run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> shit's getting weird. everyone is extremely uncomfortable. davesprite is bad at friendship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha. here i am... again.... i promise i'll explain everything eventually, and that this isn't just going to be me beatin' everyone up the entire time!!!!  
> ps, thank you for the positive feedback c: i want to say i have this much spare time to write, but honestly i'm like 15 days behind on nanowrimo and it's embarrassing LOL

Bro’s still sleeping when you wake up the next morning. At some point in the night he rolled over again, so when your eyes open you get a face full of snoozing Strider. It almost startles you out of the bed; you’ve never seen him sleep before and he... looks normal. Tired. Kinda old. It’s freaky.

You take five seconds to weigh the consequences and then reach back your hand and--

Bro grabs your wrist before you even reach his nose, and you think his eyes are a much prettier color when they’re full of life.

“Morning,” you say.

He glares, drops your hand, and rolls away. You get the pleasure of watching him stumble to his feet and promptly fall flat on his face.

You don’t laugh, but you can’t hide a grin. “You okay?”

He grunts, which you assume means, “yes, Dave, thank you for asking.”

“You should take it slow,” you tell him, pulling out your phone.

“I’m getting that,” he monotones.

Dave and Dirk appear in the hall, and they look at you, then Bro on the floor.

“Why is Bro on the floor?” Dave’s voice is that kind of controlled, closed off tone that you’d know anywhere.

“Fell,” the both of you say.

Dave sighs. “What the fuck.”

You shrug. Jade’s not online. Maybe she’s sleeping. “He had a seizure, man, he’s got issues.” John’s not online, either, but it’s early for him, and they’ve probably got family shit to sort out. God knows you do.

Dave makes a face at you, but Dirk just hovers behind him, looking nervous. You note with mild interest that he’s wearing a tank top that in no way could have come from your closet. Guess your room got an upgrade, too. He mumbles something in Dave’s ear and then retreats back down the hall to the bedroom.

You watch him go. “Sup with him?”

“He’s got issues,” Dave parrots, crossing his arms protectively. You give him a thousand yard stare. He sighs, drops his shoulders, and comes to flop on the futon. “He was raised in the middle of an ocean. I don’t know. The city’s noisy or something, it’s freaking him out.” He tilts his chin at you. “How’re the legs? Any improvement?”

You chew on the inside of you lip because no, fuck no. What you say is, “Did you see my toes wiggle just now?”

“No.”

“Then no.”

The look he gives you is so scathingly Rose it makes you cringe. He rolls over to the edge of the futon to peer down at Bro. “How’s our resident member of the AARP?”

Bro flips him off, and you see a miracle in Dave’s crooked smile.

 

You convince Dave to carry you to the bathroom after Bro trips on a fenestrated window on the way to the kitchen.

“I see your point,” he says, looking at Bro’s sprawled form. He’s lying face first in puppet ass and shows no sign of removing himself any time soon. It’s pretty much the worst thing that’s ever happened to you.

“He keeps doing it.”

“It keeps happening?” Dave suggests, and you hide a smile by rolling over to the other side of the mattress. “You okay, asshole?” you ask Bro, figure you’re safe with him on the ground.

He gives a vague sound of recognition and offers you a thumbs up.

“See he’s fine.” You wiggle your hands towards Dave.

“This is stupid,” he grunts, hefting you up, and you slap at his face.

“Less talky more walky, loser.”

He jostles you. “Fuck you.”

“Dude, I will literally piss on you.”

“You fucking piss on me I will drop you out the window so fast.”

“Just for that, I’m going to shit my pants.”

 

You manage to wash your fucking hands like an absolute doll and knock on the door so Dave knows the coast is clear.

“Can I - we go to my - your room?” you ask, choppy and hesitant.

He pulls you up. “Why?”

“I just. Want to check on him. Dirk.” You shrug. “Make sure he’s cool.” He’s not your Bro but he’s A Bro and that counts for something. He calls you Dave. That counts for something, too.

Dave hesitates, but nods, and kicks the door closed behind him before dropping you on the lumpy surface of his bed.

The bed grunts, and you wiggle your ass until you’re only halfway on top of what can only be Dirk’s bony body.

He curses and wrestles out from under his blanket prison to glare at the both of you.

“Good morning,” you tell him.

He stares from behind shades. Who wears shades to bed? (You, idiot.) “Hey.”

“Sorry it’s so shitty here,” you say, apropos of nothing. You’ve never been much for subtlety. “Lohac was - was like this too. Loud, I mean. Hot. With metal and stuff. Lots more lava, though.”

He cracks the weak beginnings of a smile. “I suppose with my limited exposure in the medium I assumed I would be ready for anything. It appears I drastically underestimated the size and uh, noise, of Houston in the 21st century.”

“Sometimes it be like that,” you say.

“And like that sometimes it be,” Dave echoes.

You fistbump.

“Is it going to be like this forever?” Dirk asks dryly. “The two of you leaving me out of bumps?”

“Hell no, get in here,” you say, and he lets you grab one of his wrists, pull it in towards yours and Dave’s for a righteous bunp. You stop just short of making a three-way joke.

“Fuck yes.”

“I’ll try harder,” Dirk says, after a minute, when you finally give his hand back.

“I don’t think you have to,” you say, and find you mean it. “I mean. I don’t think I’m really trying at all right now. Dave and I got a head start, and we’re basically at rock bottom.”

“Hey!” Dave shoves you in the shoulder. “Don’t listen to him, dude. You’re doing fine. Houston’s a big fucking city. And it smells like shit. You just need time.”

And god, you hope he’s right.

 

Jade isn’t talking to you. That’s kinda okay. You’re not really ready for that discussion, anyway.

John is, though, after you spammed his pesterchum with apologies for 24 hours straight. Call it excessive, but you almost cry when he finally responds to tell you to shut the fuck up. You honestly even smile the first time he calls you Dave Sprite.

EB: sorry, i guess it's just dave again, huh?   
TG: nah its nice to be remembered for once   
TG: for who i actually am  
TG: or was i guess  
TG: dave give you the lowdown on my sick color rearrangement  
EB: haha yeah you look like a beverly hills house wife.  
TG: hell yeah i do   
TG: im so ready for my first fucking summer sunburn free   
EB: you know being slightly less white and pasty doesn't automatically protect you from the sun, right?  
TG: dude come on dont fucking ruin this for me  
EB: oh i'm soooo sorry :B but if i can get a sunburn, then you're screwed, dude!  
EB: still, maybe dad will let us plan a family beach trip!  
EB: extended family, i guess. really extended now. it's really weird how much jane's dad looks like my dad.  
TG: john please i am literally living with myself from an alternate timeline your two dad crisis pales in comparison  
TG: especially in comparison to my sick suntan  
EB: yeah, if you're going for a donald trump look, i guess.  
TG: dude  
EB: hahaha  
EB: sorry, dave. for real this time, i mean.  
TG: davesprite  
EB: i think you mean dave sprite.  
TG: hell yeah now youre getting it

 

-*-

 

You wake up on the second day to find Bro clicking around on his computer. There’s something soothing about the way he’s perched on the edge of his chair like an overgrown gargoyle. You watch him for a few minutes until he throws a smuppet at your head, and turns away before you finish telling him off.

You let him work in peace, since he’s probably the only person here who is currently making any money, and you pester Jade again. She still hasn’t talked to you. You remember brief flashes of kissing her as Davepeta. Ugh, you want to die all over again. How fucking embarrassing.

Another smuppet hits you straight in the face and you will never admit to screeching like a little girl as you send it flying across the room in a panic.

“I can hear you thinking from here,” Bro says, sitting there like he hasn’t moved an inch. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Fuck off,” you say, weakly. “I’m a teenager, man, I got a lotta angst going on over here, can’t you go scroll through fetish forums somewhere else?” He snorts softly out the nose and doesn’t retort. You roll to the other side of the futon and try to peek over his shoulder. “What are you doing, anyway?”

“Finances,” he says, types another steady flow of numbers into whatever nonsense program he’s using. “Plushrumps has, miracle beyond miracles, been active for the past three years, and I’m not about to question this insane profit. But,” and here he sighs, sounds so much like an old man you almost roll your eyes, “my spreadsheets are three fuckin’ years behind, and whatever stand-in the Game imposed to take care of all this has neglected to do any of my taxes.”

“Wow,” you drawl, and it comes out so naturally, you almost forget this is your brother, who can beat your ass to kingdom come, “you sound like an old fucking man.”  
“Like twenty years older’n you, kid,” he says, rubs at his eyes. He’s being doing that a lot lately.

“Need me to get your reading glasses, grandpa? Or maybe we can just buy you a screen reader.”

“Don’t push your luck,” Bro says, and it’s That Voice. The one of finality, the _strife, rooftop, now_. You shrink down.

“Are we still gonna have to strife?” It’s a stupid question, you know as soon as you ask, because Bro turns his chair around and you see real emotions on his face for the first time in your life.

Brows up, eyes blown wide, he looks like a cartoon. He opens his mouth, closes it, and you’re throwing yourself across the floor before his chair has even fully tipped.

Dave is there in a blink, handing you a pillow to shove under his head and you count the time on Bro’s computer as he twitches so you don’t have to watch.

You stare at the shitty Muppet poster while Dave gets Dirk to help haul Bro back onto the futon and feel anger start to burn in your chest.

_HEEHEEHAAHAAHOOHOO_

It takes about three minutes of maneuvering and your arms shake the whole time, but you climb into Bro’s chair and rip the fucking poster off the wall. They watch you push yourself off the desk, send the chair sliding across the room so you can dislodge another.

“Dave,” Dirk says slowly, like he’s worried you’ll snap, “what are you doing?”

“Cleaning house,” you grunt, and rip one of them in half.

 

It takes a couple hours for the three of you to clean up. You tear down posters, throw out anything that reminds you of puppetry aside from the smuppets, which you shove into the storage closet until further notice (it’s not clean money, but it’s still money).The sink is emptied, then the dishwasher and fridge, all things sharp and pointy are locked away in Dirk and Dave’s room, to be thrown out or sold at a later date.

Bro was always a stickler for sanitation, but you haven’t seen the apartment this clean in your entire life.

Dave seems more comfortable when it’s empty, when all that’s left is Dirk’s weird horse statue and that big fucking bust of Snoop Dogg left in the hall.

At a second thought, you go through the apartment with them and dismantle all Bro’s booby traps.

Dave watches you in absolute horror as you point and instruct like it’s not a big deal, and you can even reach some of the ones in the closet and on the counter. You can only shrug. You had three years of snooping to find them all, and the smuppets don’t really annoy you anymore. (Dirk has nothing to say about it, but you know it’s because their room is now home to a pile of hats and smuppets of his own make.)

 

-*-

 

It’s been almost a week and shit is getting weird in the Strider household.

You spend most of your time laying around on the futon because hey, fun surprise, your legs still don’t fucking work!

You pinch at them off and on, hoping. You can feel it, but just barely, and definitely not well enough for your liking. You kinda think you need a doctor, kinda think a doctor visit would send you right into the hands of CPS, which honestly without any other legal family to speak of, would be the worst fucking thing that’s ever happened to you. Barring most of your childhood and the entirety of the time you spent in the game and y’know, maybe you’re just not destined to have any good in your shit life.

Dave stays in his room, mostly. You’re not sure who he’s trying to avoid, you or Bro. You guess Bro. You wish he’d come out more often, but you guess he’s just not ready to face him yet. That’s cool. I mean sure, you can’t fucking walk and definitely can’t get to the bathroom by yourself but it’s cool. You like having to pester Dirk and ask him to send in the response team.

Okay, maybe you do kind of like it, and it is a little cool. He seems like he’s trying to adjust, and he’s not completely failing.

You’ve never seen him leave the house, but he’s gotten to the point where he’ll hang in the kitchen long enough for you to hold a conversation before retreating. You’re guessing he doesn’t love facing Bro, either.

But you do see him glance out the window from time to time, usually after your piss break.

“You can go out there, you know,” you tell him on one such occasion, settling back into the cushions. You see the tiniest twitch of Bro’s hat that lets you know you’ve got his attention.

Dirk opens his mouth like he could agree, but then shakes his head, a small jerk. “Don’t think I’m quite ready for that yet, dude. Even looking at all these buildings from up here makes me fucking nauseous.”

“Have you ever considered you might be afraid of heights?” you ask.

That startles a laugh out of him, and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t enjoy the way it catches in his throat, like he tried to stop it half way. “If that were the case, my planet would be even more of a massive joke. As it stands, nothing to fear from a fall except death.” He looks back out the window and you get the sense of longing from the rise of his brow. “And I’ve already been there, done that.”

You glance at Bro and wonder if he’s curious about Dirk. You can ask him later, but he’s been kinda weird the past few days, zoning out and dropping shit like a completely normal human being.

You wouldn’t worry if it was Dave, or you, or anyone else (except maybe Dirk, what with the whole technically being Bro thing going on), but with Bro, you’re seriously starting to freak.

He goes through these moments where it seems like he’s not all there. He doesn’t talk much anyway, only at night when you’re lying there unable to sleep, and you basically harass him until he gives up and rolls over to listen to you babble, but it’s noticeable. He’ll stand up and freeze halfway through the motion, like he’s forgotten what he’s doing.

He’ll reach for you, stop. He’ll go to the kitchen, stop. He’ll start typing, stop.

You’ve been googling seizures for days, and the results are not favorable. You’re pretty sure you need to get this asshole to a fucking hospital.

“Stop staring at me,” is all he says now, and you let out a squawk of distress as a smuppet goes flying at your head.

Okay, maybe you’re not completely over your fear of puppets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hopefully this doesn't come across as THAT odd? i might consider switching perspective in the next couple chapters, just to get across a fuller storyline? anyway! yes! thank you!


	3. the go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bro's kind of a dick. Davesprite is realizing, ever so slowly, that maybe he's kind of a dick, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back again! it's a little bit shorter, but there's a lot to unpack here, probably. two new tags enter the fray!!!!! sorry everyone

\-- turntechGodhead  [TG] began pestering gardenGnostic  [GG]  --

TG: so i know this is like   
TG: the nth time ive pestered you   
TG: fuck i dont even know if youre getting this at all   
TG: being that im somehow using my handle at the same time as dave but whatever   
TG: beggars cant be choosers   
TG: just so were aware i am 10000% the beggar in this scenario   
TG: maybe you dont even remember half the shit i brought up and now ive made it too awkward for you to respond   
TG: in which case please ignore everything i said 

\-- gardenGnostic  [GG] is an idle chum! --

TG: yeah yeah i get it   
TG: just   
TG: im sorry okay   
TG: for everything that happened 

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering gardenGnostic  [GG] \--

 

“Y’know, if you keep pestering her, she’s not going to respond,” Dirk says, reading over your shoulder.

You clutch your phone to your chest, nudge him away with your elbow. “That is literally the most hypocritical thing I have ever heard in my entire life.”

Dirk doesn’t quite mask a cringe, but he smiles anyway. “Arquiusprite told you about that too, huh?”

You hum, put your head on his shoulder. Rose is online, but you don’t have the guts to ask if she remembers you. “Kinda. He might’ve glossed over a few things in pursuit of more muscle-focused conversation topics, but I got the gist of the breakup.”

“Was that a cat pun I heard?”

You elbow him so hard in the gut that he wheezes, falls over on the bed snickering.

“Okay, okay, sorry, sorry.” He smiles up at you and you are disgusted to find yourself warm from head to toe. “We’re both kinda fucked up, huh?”

“Yeah,” you sigh, flopping back against the wall. It’s cold against your neck, but you don’t care enough to move. “We kinda suck.”

You share a solid bump over your mutual suckage. It makes you feel a little better.

At least right up until the door to the bedroom opens and closes with a loud slam, and there’s Dave, with his back pressed against the door, face deadly pale. “I broke Bro,” he blurts, before you can even open your mouth.

You have no idea what that means.

“I have no idea what that means.” It doesn’t sound fucking good, whatever it is. Did he piss him off? Are you going to go out there and see your new bedroom in ruins? You would have heard it, right? You would know if something happened. Dirk would have noticed. But he looks unscathed, though fully clothed and dry, despite having left to take a shower. You reckon he never got that far.

“Dave, what the fuck did you do?”

Dave just shakes his head, mouth flapping like a guppy.

He didn’t actually do anything. He went to take a shower, ran into Bro, panicked, they argued, and Bro just. Stopped.

Dirk furrows his brow, bites his lip. “Stopped what?”

Dave moves his arms jerkily, like he can’t find the right words. “Just. Stopped. Everything? Like a fucking robot outta batteries, mid-sentence, didn’t even get past ‘listen kiddo’, old man style, fucking full on dementia-level stopped.” He opens the door, peeks into the hall, and closes it again. “Now he’s just sitting out there on the floor, staring into space, and I’m in here, freaking out. Does it seem like I’m freaking out? I feel hot. Is it hot in here?”

Dirk looks back at you, eyebrows raised high over his shades, full askance, and you shrug helplessly. You have no fucking clue. Dude is weird, but you’re not 100% sure you could put it past him to pull a shitty prank like this.

Dirk just sighs through his nose, looks up at the ceiling. It’s a trait he shares with Bro that you never thought to look for. You’re finding more of those these days. “Dave,” he says, and it’s gentle authority, coaxing, and (you worry not) entirely sincere. He opens an arm and Dave goes to him in an instant, folds against his side like he belongs there.

You are irritatingly, irrationally jealous.

But it’s little more than a simple side hug before Dirk is on his feet, leaving Dave tucked into the pillows and blankets. “You can stay. Dave ‘n I will investigate. I know you want to, yeah?”

He’s looking at you, and he’s right, of course he is, but you gnaw on the inside of your cheek. A part of you just wants to stay here, not have to deal with this, not have to deal with the panic and stress just for five more fucking minutes.

You glance at Dave and know, instantly, that he’s miserable. That he genuinely thinks he did something. You don’t know. Maybe he did. Probably not. Still, it’s your self-imposed burden to bear, so you let Dirk drag you up, try not to complain when his movements are a little too rough.

 

True to his word, there’s Bro, right where Dave left him. He’s sitting cross-legged now, if he wasn’t before, and his head is in his hands.

“Bro,” you call, and when he doesn’t answer, you tell Dirk to kick him.

He winces. “I’d rather not.”

“Nah, look, it won’t hurt him for more’n a sec, just do it.” It is, admittedly, mostly (pun intended) for kicks. “Drop me here and I’ll do it myself.”

Dirk does neither. Instead, mouth pinched into a thin line, he reaches out a socked toe and prods your brother in the knee.

“Don’t,” Bro says, voice rough and cracked around the edges.

“Why are you sitting on the floor, dude?” It’s a perfectly valid question. You’re tired of being carried like a prima ballerina in a stage production of When the Bird Takes Flight. Or something. Whatever. Knowing you, it’s always going to be bird-related. Just your fucking luck. You try for honesty. “You really freaked Dave out.”

“I don’t know,” Bro grunts. You look at the curve of his spine, how he’s folded into himself as small as he can go.

“Are you having another seizure?” It comes out around a sigh, and there is something like guilt there, red iron hot against your chest.

“No,” he says, and you can hear the hesitation in his voice now.

“Do you need help?” And that’s Dirk, soft as anything, jaw clenched, body tense.

That makes Bro snort, though it’s not unkind. “Understatement of the year, right there.”

“I’m going to put you on the futon,” Dirk tells you with finality, like this is a chore he has to do every day. It wouldn’t be far off, really. Your life has been a comedy routine in seven parts since last week.

You let him, don’t protest. Don’t grunt when you’re dropped onto the weak spot in the mattress and you can feel the boards underneath collide ever-so-magnificently with your tender ass muscles. You are going to bruise like a peach.

You message Dave from the bedroom, because you can, and because it’s faster. Tell him Bro isn’t dead, at least not yet, and that you’re handling it, which you hope is true.

Dirk doesn’t look pleased as he walks back toward the hall. And why should he? Facing this older version of himself, mouth twisted sour, you wonder suddenly if he’s been putting on a show for you. For both of you.

Shame roils in your gut. Facing a version of yourself who isn’t you, that you may or may not turn out to be... That’s some heavy shit.

You watch him hold out a hand to help Bro to his feet and wonder if he needs someone to talk to about it.

That person probably shouldn’t be you.

Your shades light up in fluorescent green and you almost startle yourself off the futon.

\-- gardenGnostic  [GG] began pestering turntechGodhead  [TG] \--

GG: hi dave!!!  
GG: or davesprite, i guess :\ john told me you were insisting on going by that silly name   
GG: i got um! some of your messages  
GG: and stuff!!

Oh no. Oh my god. Not right now.

GG: i figured maybe we could talk about, if you wanted to  
GG: things are still kinda fuzzy!!  
GG: and not just our connection over here on hell murder island, either!  
GG: although admittedly the weather has been pretty bad this year :(  
TG: jade i absolutely want to talk about this and we totally will  
TG: but right now is literally the worst possible time for this and i cannot stress enough how absolutely we should talk about this

Bro rolls to his feet with only half as much trouble as usual, and you watch Dave and Dirk follow behind him as he comes stumbling into the living room.

TG: but not right now

You shut the window and put your shades on your head so you don’t have to see her reply. Press your hands over your face and try not to scream. Oh my god.

“What’s eating you?” Bro’s snark is not appreciated, and neither is the way he flops onto the futon bodily, feet landing unwanted in your lap, face-planting in your favorite pillow.

“Bit me,” you snap, because you’re freaking out right now and are surrounded on all sides by complete assholes.

“Don’t tempt me,” Bro mutters, voice muffled, and you shove his feet away from you. Stupid heavy asshole.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Dave says, watching Bro roll over and away from you. “We can’t keep doing this.”

“Well it’s not like I have a backup plan,” you say, and you’re just being mean now, aggravated and embarrassed. “Dave, Christ, I didn’t even expect either of us to come back here _alive._ What the fuck do you want from me?”

He stares at you, muscle in his jaw jumping. He looks like he’s going to hit you. At this point, you’d almost fucking welcome it. But you must look like shit like this, squinting in the light, fed up and exhausted. He quickly deflates. He’s fed up, too. “I don’t. I don’t know.”

“Can you go not know somewhere else?” Bro rasps, hands pressed over his eyes. “My head’s fuckin’ killing me, and you chucklefucks certainly aren’t helping.”

“Fuck off, Bro,” you sigh, rolling your eyes, but Dave retreats without another word, shoulders square and face blank.

Dirk hesitates, lingering in between the hall and the coffee table. He wrings his hands together, feet shifting like he’s not quite sure whether to stay or go. “He’s right, DS,” he says after a moment.

And you know, you really do, but you just. Can’t deal with it right now.

 

Bro’s mood doesn’t improve throughout the day. He doesn’t want to talk, doesn’t want to listen, and you find yourself growing smaller and smaller the longer time goes on.

In the end, you have to bite the bullet and needle him for a good twenty minutes before he agrees to carry you to your room. Dave’s room. You don’t know. You’re really tired of trying to figure it out.

He finally does it with a look that usually spells death for you, and you think you’d really like him better if he was wearing shades. You’ll ask Dirk for a pair. God, you hope he has spares.

Being carried like a wet bundle of grapes, held out in front of Bro like you’re a baby who pissed himself, is so fucking embarrassing, and you scowl the whole time, just to make sure he knows exactly how much you hate this.

“Then don’t ask next time,” is all he says before kicking open Dave’s door, dropping you on the floor, and absconding.

God, he’s such a fucking dick.

“Dude, what the fuck,” Dave says, and you look over at them, and almost regret your decision to come back.

Dirk and Dave are a tangle of limbs on the bed, Dave’s laptop between them, sharing headphones and watching videos. God you wish that were you. Ugh.

“Sorry,” you say weakly, fight extinguished. You pull your feet until you’re cross-legged. Drop your head. Maybe you’ll just pull a Bro and sit on the floor for the rest of the night. “I didn’t want to be out there right now.”

You hear bed covers shift, the sound of feet padding across the floor, ultralight, left foot first. Dave drops to a crouch by your side. “Nah, man. It’s cool. We can... It’s cool, okay? We’ll figure it out. You wanna watch Youtube? If we play it real quiet, Bro won’t hear. C’mon, we’ll make room, I promise.”

Your own voice shouldn’t be soothing, but maybe you’re programmed that way, maybe you’re just really, really fucking lonely. Whatever it is, you nod, pathetic, and Dave helps you up, lets you settle between them, and you fall asleep there, and you definitely aren’t sad, and you definitely don’t totally forget your shades, sitting on the bedside table, blinking green.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i fucking hate formatting pesterlogs LOL  
> the next chapter might be dirk-oriented. i haven't written him in foreeever though so like. bear with me, kids.


	4. midnight run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirk makes a new friend, except not really. Don't panic, kids. It's just weed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is from Dirk's perspective, because there's a lot I want to cover and honestly it's more fun and at this point I'm really diving deep into self-indulgent territory, haha.  
> warning for underage weed smoking. no biggie tbh

You have lived in the 21st century for a week and a half, and honestly? You're kind of disappointed.

It's not that you don't like Dave's company, because you do. Davesprite, too. Getting to know both of them, watching the divergence of their personalities, how three years apart shaped them into disturbingly (yet fascinatingly) different people. It's great, really. They've both got very good, if somewhat fatalistic, senses of humor, and they tolerate all the ways in which you aren't particularly funny.

But still, you are unhappy.

And maybe that's just like you, to be so miserable when you are given a gift like this. When your friends are safe and alive and you have your brother twice over. And they're funny and good and wonderful, and they love you, and they accept you as their own bro.

Except, of course, they are not  _your_ bro.

And ain't that just the rub, the grind in your metaphorical and very physical gears. Your friends are safe, they are alive, and everyone's got a guardian.

Everyone but you and Roxy.

You don't know what you were expecting, when you saw your Sunday evening project horse sitting there in the living room the first time, hope fluttering in your stomach like so many butterflies. For him to come around the corner, perhaps. To be awake with you all on the rooftop, shades cracked and clothes a little rumpled, but very much alive.

You just wanted that chance, to know Your Dave Strider. To talk to him, tell him about yourself, tell him everything you know about. Well. You don't know. Everything, you guess.

You just wanted so, so badly.

But you didn't get that.

Instead, you got heat and noise and misery, the cacophony of horns honking, police sirens and car engines below and airplanes overhead. Instead, you are forced to deal with a reflection of yourself you weren't expecting to see, bigger and older and so easily someone you could be, if you had lived a different life.

You cannot stop Davesprite from the way he hovers protectively, from the way he forces this burden upon himself, but you can lessen the strain.

After all, you have plenty of practice dealing with versions of yourself you don't particularly like. What's one more?

And you do dislike him, in all the same ways you dislike yourself, and several more. There is a cruelty to his movements that you recognize, an indifference that terrifies you.

While you are confident in your intelligence and strength, you have never had particularly high self-esteem.

 

Davesprite falls asleep in his bed with Dave beside him and they are like mirrors of each other, heads lulled to the side, mouths slightly parted. One touches the other and they both grunt, roll over the opposite way. It'd be laughable, if you were that kind of person, but honestly it just makes you a little sad. You miss Lil Cal.

You have these moments often, when you are captive audience to your own brain. Where you don't want to (read: can't) sleep, so you sit and think and fuss and pace, and feel yourself start to spiral.

Dave's usually game to stay awake with you as long as he can, til he's slurring words and laughing at nothing. Til he drags you to bed, clings so tight that you're forced to finally find sleep for how bored you are, trapped against him (but you also kind of love it -- touch-starved much??).

There is something about nights like these that you cannot explain. It's an ache in your chest, a desire to escape, a craving for a feeling you cannot obtain.

You are restless, you always have been. It is far from your greatest fault.

And so you climb out the window, a rational thing to do, in your own apartment, go hand over hand, foothold to familiar foothold, until you're back on the roof.

It's something you haven't told Dave yet, not either of them. You're not lying, exactly. You don't necessarily  _leave_ the apartment. It's just that. That sometimes you need a minute. That sometimes, your own brain is so much that it  _cripples_ you, and you need to (have to) escape. And the only escape you're used to is the rooftop of an apartment building that was - or will be, or will never be - in the middle of the ocean.

So you climb up, tuck yourself at the base of the radio tower, and take off your shades.

Light floods through the city, late as it is, but up here, you can almost see the sky, smog reflecting the dull orange and yellow lights that come from below. Moisture clings to the air here, just like it did back home, and even under the cover of night, you feel it settle around you like a second, sticky skin.

You want to think Houston is beautiful. The truth is far more depressing.

"Not much to look at, is it?"

The hair on the back of your neck stands straight up and you jump to your feet in an instant, release your broken katana from your sylladex.

Stark blonde hair hits the light of the radio tower and Bro Strider stands before you, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a lit cigarette. "Hey."

You mentally kick yourself for losing track of your surroundings. He snuck up on you so soundly. Or maybe he was already there? Fuck, you're losing your touch.

And he's still standing there, still as anything, waiting for you to speak. You think. You wonder if you're that unnerving to everyone around you.

Anger curls up in the pit of your stomach like a viper, ready to strike. "What do you want."

He shrugs, takes a drag, holds it in a way you get never seen anyone hold a cigarette before. "Not to argue semantics," he drawls, blowing out smoke in a thick cloud, "but I was here first. Should be askin' you." His accent is stronger than yours or the Daves', rolls low on the Rs and comes from deep in his chest. You've got a few years yet before you can sound like that.

The smoke drifts over you before you can answer, smells earthy and a little skunky, stings your nose enough that your eyes water. That is. Not a cigarette. Okay. Well. Alright, then. "Are you seriously just up here smoking weed right now?"

Even shadeless his face is a blank slate, straight lines and thousand yard stare. But you know yourself, and Bro Strider is all micro-expressions, little pieces only you find meaning in, memorized moments from television and movies, a caricature of an Average Person, but ten times less sincere. The twitch of his lips speaks a thousand words. "Yup." He takes a hit, holds it and offers you the joint.

Your name is Dirk Strider, you are sixteen(ish) years old, and you have never been offered weed before.

"I'm sixteen," you say weakly.

He sighs out his nose, smoke pouring from his nostrils like a cartoon dragon. "I know."

You stare at him, sword limp at your side, and he stares back. A stalemate, neither party willing to cave.

"It's fine," he finally says, pulls it back. "If you wanna be a pussy about it."

"No, I -" you start, snap your mouth shut. What the fuck are you even doing? You don't know. You don't know. You mutter a soft curse and tuck away your sword.

Bro watches you silently and you wonder what he really thinks of you. There is practiced disinterest there, in the loose slope of his shoulders, the hunched curve of his spine. He has worse posture than Dave, Jesus. The two of you have been very purposefully distant, at least as far as you can be. He doesn't speak to you, and you don't speak to him. You think of his hand in yours, pulling him to his feet. How your skin burned on contact, calluses scraping against each other, the worn leather of his glove catching at your palm. He hadn't thanked you, had barely even glanced your way. You wonder if your existence embarrasses him the same way his is slowly eating away at you.

When you hold out your hand, it feels like defeat, but the alternative feels more so, and you carefully do not look at him when he passes you the joint, shapes it in your fingers so you're holding it the right way. You are not an idiot, nor a child, and you scoff at him, jerk away. You can do it on your own.

A stutter of air out his nose. He's laughing at you. Fuck him. You bring it to your lips, try not to be so aware of his eyes on you, and suck in.

It does not

go down smoothly.

You cough and splutter and he's actually smiling now, teeth flashing in the dim light, plucks it from your fingers before you toss it off the roof. "It's not a cigarette, kid."

"I know that," you snap, level a glare his way. Your other hand curls into a fist and you become acutely aware that you are still holding your shades, the edges digging into your palm.

Bro just takes another hit, looks you right in the eye, and you color red in useless shame, turn to stalk away across the roof. He's just trying to embarrass you, you know that. Rile you up, get under your skin. Hal was the same way.

God, you never thought you'd say it but you really fucking miss him. (And that had been the most miserable part of your return, reaching out for Hal, finding him missing, the program specs there but no where to be found. You may or may not still be obsessing over it.)

"Gets loud in there sometimes, doesn't it?" Bro calls after you, and you stutter to a halt.

When you turn around, he's regarding you carefully, a slight tilt to his head that spells hesitation, curiosity. You don't know what game he's playing. Because right now, it doesn't feel like any game at all.

You might regret what you're about to do. You might not. But there's no one here right now to tell you no, to tell you not to follow that insatiable need to know, and so you turn back, come to stand before him, face to face.

He's a good four inches taller than you, easily, hair not included. Guess you can look forward to another growth spurt. From the way he tips his head down to look at you, it's something he's used to, being the tallest person in a room.

"I can't sleep sometimes," you tell him, watch for any reaction at all. "I just keep thinking, and thinking, like my brain won't turn off, like there's so much more I could be doing than sleeping, so many things I could accomplish if I could just --" You cut yourself off, look down at your feet. "I don't know how to sleep here. In this city. In this world." And maybe it's almost fetishistic, to lay yourself bare for your own reflection, instead of someone who actually fucking cares about you. It's so depressingly stereotypical of you that you let loose a caustic laugh. "This is so fucking stupid."

Bro hums, and when he holds out the joint again, you take it, roll back through your memory to the movies you've seen, let Bro pantomime for you. Breathe in, hold, release.

A little smoke comes out your nose, and you give a small cough, but the rest filters smooth from your lungs, makes the air around you taste crisper in the aftermath.

"Better," he comments, not quite praise.

"It tastes like shit," you manage.

"Yeah," he sighs as you pass it back. "S'least three years old, now. Probably do some good to text my dealer." He pauses, thinks about it. "I hope he didn't die when the meteor hit. Be a damn shame."

"Dave said you cut the meteor in half," you say, because you don't know what else you're supposed to do.

"Twice as likely, then," he says, and it's more emotion than you've ever heard, real disappointment leaking through the cracks. You are horrified, and horrifying fascinated.

You feel like you should say something reassuring. What the fuck do you say when someone's weed dealer gets blown up by a meteor? You are extremely uncomfortable with this entire situation. "I mean, you came back to life, right?"

"Got me there, junior. Might be hope for us, yet." He gives you one more hit. You don't choke this time, and when you're done, he drops the charred remains, squashes them under his heel. "You want something to eat?" As if on cue, your stomach grows in agreement. His mouth turns up a pixel fraction. "Cool."

Bro does not wait for you to leave, turns to the side and disappears in a flash, and you stand on the rooftop, feeling bare and exposed, and more confused than you were before. You put your shades back on, if for no other reason than the comfort it gives you.

When you step back into the apartment, Bro is nowhere to be seen, and you tread carefully across the room, stand in the kitchen because you don't know where else to be. The only light comes from his computer, a blue glow that rebounds off the walls in a diamond shaped refraction.

Bro reappears in a blink, a movement you can almost follow, faster than you've ever been able to step, and it almost startles your sword loose from your sylladex all over again.

"Chill," he monotones. He's holding two cans of orange soda, and he shoves one of them into your hands.

You almost drop it in surprise when the cold metal touches your bare skin, but Bro either doesn't notice or doesn't care, cracks his open and drinks half of it in one go.

"I didn't see anything in the fridge last time we cleaned it," you say finally.

"Mini-fridge," he shrugs. He's gone and back again, and this time he has two instant noodle cups that look like what you, Dave, and DS have been eating for the past week.

Your fingers curl in the edge of the counter. "Does Dave know you have a mini-fridge?" It comes out meaner than you want it to, or maybe it doesn't, and you shouldn't really be the one to talk. You had never used your fridge for anything but storage, either.

He doesn't even blink, flipping on the tap. "Had to keep him on his toes. Don't know why he even bothered checking that often, anyway."

You feel that anxiety again, that specific, cruel tightness in your chest. You can see it, now. How the parts of yourself that seemed so innocent before -- the genuine drive to better your friends, to make them stronger -- reflected upon someone else, come across so dangerously. Your grasp on the counter tightens as you start to feel sick. "That's." Your voice wavers. "That's fucked up. You know that's fucked up, right?"

Bro just shrugs again, shoves both cups in the microwave.

You feel the effects hitting you now, your brain's constant, but errant chatter becoming more like a distant echo. All you can focus on now is how messed up this entire situation is. How laughable this moment in time really is.

"You're not a good person," you tell him, and feel calm. Feel panicked. Feel like you're going to pass out.

Bro is quiet for a long, long moment. He watches the microwave, the cups inside going round and round. You don't think he heard you, at first. Or he's ignoring you. But then he looks at you, and his eyes are darker than yours, glowing in the dim light. His gaze is steady, his expression blank. When he speaks, it's the ghost of a whisper, an exhalation on a held breath. "I know."

 

You eat in perfect silence, sitting on the edge of the futon, shaking with exhaustion and an undercurrent of rage. You don't know what else to say.

If Bro's thinking at all about what you said, he doesn't mention it, slurps his noodles beside you.

When you get up to retreat to your/Dave's room, he stops you, a hand laid ever so gently on your wrist. "Hey."

You pause, press your lips together. You're so deeply uncomfortable, so stressed, all you want is to hide.

But then he reaches up, left hand first, and pulls a sword out of his sylladex.

Your heart slams in your chest, blood rushing in your ears. You stumble back, go for your own.

"Shit, no, c'mon, it's not like that." A hand raised in surrender. He holds it out. "Here."

You stare at the sword.

Look at him.

Back at the sword.

He sighs heavy through his nose, drops his free hand on his knee, looks at you with such open exasperation you expect --

You don't know. Whatever kids in movies get when their parents are upset with them.

"Are you gonna fuckin' take it or not, kid?"

"My name is Dirk," you say, for lack of anything else.

His eyebrows skyrocket, and he looks younger like that, mouth slightly parted, eyes wide. "I," he chokes. "I know."

"Okay," you say.

"Okay." He offers the sword up to you again. And you realize it's your sword, or his sword, or both or neither. You know immediately that the blue cloth wrapped around the hilt is Roxy's. This is the sword she used to kill the Batterwitch.

"I don't want that," you say, voice strangled.

"Neither do I." He wiggles it at you. "Take it."

"No," you say forcefully.

He pinches his lips together, eyebrows slanting downward.

You imagine the two of you look ridiculous, you standing there like you want to run, him sitting there with his chin in one hand, a sword extended to you in the other.

"We can trade," he says. "I'll get yours fixed, you can borrow mine, at least have a functioning weapon."

"I don't know if it can be fixed," you blurt before you can stop yourself.

He quirks a brow. "Why not?"

"Dave cut it with Caledfwlch when he killed me."

That receives what is literally the most terrifying response you have ever seen. His face goes completely blank, like a statue, body still, voice flat. "What." It isn't a question.

"I had to --" You flex your hands, look around like it'll help you. You settle for folding your arms across your chest. "He cut off my head to kill Jack. It was the only way. The sword was collateral damage."

He takes that better than you thought he would, becomes softer, almost human again. Rubs at his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose. "Okay. I... Alright. Neither of us want the sword." With the wave of his hand and the flash of a blade, the sword is gone. "We'll deal with it later, just. Just go to bed, kid."

You could collapse right there in relief, and drop your shoulders with a deep breath. "It's Dirk," you say softly.

He turns his head to look at you, and you think he almost looks amused like this, mouth curled up on one side, eyes drooped with exhaustion. "I'm not calling you that."

"It's my fucking name," you say.

"Yeah," he says, and there's the flash of crooked teeth again, "I know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just. really like dirk and bro.


	5. afternoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davesprite's having a bad day. Actually, he's having a bad week. Actually, everything pretty much feels like shit. Bro's there, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Standard warning for being a miserable and dramatic teenager. Ah, to be sixteen and young, with your whole second life laid out before you.

GG: like i said its all just really fuzzy!   
GG: im still having nightmares about johns planet blowing up and ive been talking to him every night.....  
TG: well thats  
TG: thats good  
GG: oh davesprite its not that i didnt want to talk to you because i guess the you from that timeline died too  
GG: its just......  
GG: well you said some pretty sad things :( about our relationship  
GG: and it made me think about them too  
GG: and how even though i dont remember entirely it still makes me really sad that you feel that way  
GG: or felt that way  
TG: jade i told you i was just going through some shit okay  
TG: im still going through some shit honestly i dont know how everyone else seems to have their shit on complete lockdown like this  
TG: like everyone got into the panic room before me and closed the hatch and now im out here with the killer   
TG: except the killer is my bro  
TG: who honestly i dont even know what to do with right now  
TG: he seems like  
TG: i dunno  
TG: not as terrible  
TG: except in the ways that he still is of course  
TG: and now hes worse in some others  
GG: dave said that too :\   
GG: about your brother being alive i mean  
GG: and weird!! but he always seemed really weird to me anyway :p  
TG: yeah shits just  
TG: really confusing i guess i dont know  
TG: im happy hes alive i think  
GG: you think??  
TG: well yeah  
TG: because hes my brother and stuff and watching him die the first time was super fucked up  
GG: yeah :( i thought you were dead too back then  
GG: im glad i was wrong!  
TG: yeah  
TG: but its just you know like  
TG: i dont know  
TG: theres the whole thing with cal and whether or not he was really  
TG: anyway it doesnt matter  
TG: im sorry we all know our relationship was a shit show john as our witness we wont do it again and im ready to just try to keep living and be friends again  
TG: if you want  
GG: of course were friends!!!! but i feel like we havent really talked about all the stuff you said  
TG: i was an asshole jade  
TG: theres really not much else to say on the matter  
TG: how high do i even need to reach forgiveness here  
GG: well okay >:\   
GG: i will give you a temporary pass because i dont remember and because you went out of your way to make a funny reference  
GG: but when i do we are talking about this!!!!!  
TG: okay okay cool whatever just tell me how shits going on hell murder island you going crazy yet  
GG: well!! no not exactly!!!  
GG: im actually really happy to have grandpa back because honestly it was really lonely before :(   
GG: but jakes here now too!! and i think he was feeling kind of bummed out at first.......   
GG: on account of his grandma version of me not existing yet and everything  
GG: but i think the quiet is doing him some good  
GG: or at least as much quiet as living with grandpa gives a person :p hes kind of silly!  
TG: woah now harley rewind for a sec  
TG: what do you mean yet  
TG: your space bark dog powers working over there  
TG: btw do you totally still have the ears  
TG: i bet you do  
GG: dave!!! you should know better than to ask a girl about her ears!!  
GG: but the answer is yes  
GG: and also, i dont know!  
GG: its just this feeling i keep having.....  
GG: that things arent settled yet  
GG: The Game isnt finished yet  
TG: harley youve said a lot of things to make me cry but this is by all accounts the worst  
GG: oh i dont know if i mean that in a bad way  
GG; at least not yet!  
GG: i think we just need to be patient :)  
TG: do you think  
TG; like other things will come back  
TG: or people i guess  
GG: i hope so! rose said that roxys been kind of upset too......  
GG: about her mom who is also rose  
GG: i wonder if dirk feels the same way? :o   
TG: idk honestly the dude is pretty impenetrable  
TG: like emotionally i mean  
TG: got hells of secrets up there in that brain who even knows  
GG: :\   
GG: you havent asked him have you?  
TG: no  
TG: i mean i thought about it  
TG: well no i guess i havent actually  
TG: what with dealing with the not dead bro and stuff  
TG: hey that reminds me has your grandpa seemed off after coming back  
GG: off how??  
TG: like weird or different in any way  
TG: like seizures or acting like hes about to die again  
GG: hmmmm...........  
GG: nope!!!!  
GG: he seemed a little surprised to see jake i guess! and maybe a little embarrassed because hes old and stuff i think  
GG: we had to listen to him talk about his adventures when he was young for a couple hours hehe  
GG: it only sucked a little though and anyway jake was having fun  
GG: why? is your bro acting like that??? dave that sounds really serious!!  
TG: no  
TG: no hes fine and stuff i just  
TG: its weird that theyre alive again  
TG: i just keep waiting for the other shoe to drop  
GG: well maybe thats your problem!!!   
GG: theres nothing wrong you just keep expecting the worst to happen  
GG: maybe you need to try and be more positive!!  
TG: right  
TG hey jade im gonna go  
TG: shower calls and all  
TG: try not to peek with your dog vision  
GG: dave please  
GG: there are plenty other things i could see with my dog vision first!  
TG: wow that feels so hella rude  
GG: but its not actually working either :(   
GG: i just have the feeling about the stuff i already said   
TG: okay well try not to have any feelings about me in the shower okay  
GG: strider!!!!!!!!!!!! >:oooo  
TG: heh  
TG: later jade

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering gardenGnostic [GG] \--

 

You take off your shades and sigh shakily, press your fingers into your eyes until you see stars.

It's the same shit all over again. God you're such a fuckup. You shouldn't have brought it up. You shouldn't have said anything.

You hear the front door click closed quietly and raise your head, squint in the light.

Bro's standing just inside the doorway, holding two bags in his hands from the CVS down the street. "Sup."

"Hey," you croak. Your throat betrays you, and you clear it, blink a few times. "Where the fuck did you go? Woke up all alone this morning, cold and afraid, worried you fucking died of a heart attack in the shower, or slipped on the soap and bumped your noggin. Or whatever. I don't know. What's in the bag?" You kinda lost your train of thought there, and you're not feeling good enough to care.

Totally shocking, Bro doesn't answer. He toes off his shoes, leaves them by the door, and crosses the room in mismatched socks. You don't know where he even found a blue sock in this place. That's a mystery for another time. "Was just picking up a few things. Almost outta soap, anyway, and figured the stash took a pretty major hit the past few weeks."

You can't stop your heart picking up a bit. He knows about the stash of instant noodles shoved deep in your closet. But he doesn't sound mad, just matter-of-fact, and you're kind of in the middle of wallowing right now, so who cares? "Okay," is all you can muster.

He pauses, then, setting the bags by the sink. When he turns back around, his expression is unreadable, new shades borrowed from Dirk masking any and all feeling he had left to bare to you. "What crawled up your ass and died?"

Wow. Eloquent, as always.

"Nothing," you say, instead of everything. You push the heels of your hands into your eyes again, grind at them. "Can't a guy just have a bad fucking day?"

He shrugs, leans up against the counter. "Kinda seems like you've been having a bad fuckin' day  _every_ day since we came back."

"No shit," you snap, drop your hands, palms up. You're so tired. You're so fucking done with this horseshit. "Can you please just leave me the fuck alone for like five damn minutes? Can anybody?"

You lose it, just for a second.

"Yes, I'm having a shitty day! I'm so fucking tired of this stupid futon, but I can't sleep in my bed because I feel like Dave has more claim over it than I do, because he's the real Dave and I'm not, and because I really want Dirk to like me, even though I shouldn't care because he's just another version of you who hasn't figured out how much I suck yet. My friends don't really want to talk to me, because they'd rather talk to Dave, and I'm not even mad about it!"

You're shouting now.

"Even worse, my ex-girlfriend doesn't remember we dated because it happened in a different reality that wasn't even technically a timeline, so she doesn't understand why we broke up, or why she'd even have feelings for me in the first place! My skin is the wrong color! My  _hair_ is the wrong color! I'm barely even Dave anymore and no one seems to care, and worst of all, I can't even do anything about it because my legs don't work, and I can't do anything on my own!" Your face is burning, your eyes stinging, and the apartment is perfectly, deadly still. You can't breathe, your nose is clogged, and you want to burrow into the blankets and die there.

Bro is a rock, immovable, arms crossed over his chest, face blank and pose casual.

You drag your shades back over your eyes, try to hide the way your hands are starting to shake. "It doesn't matter. Can you just - can you take me to the bathroom? I told Jade I was going to shower."

Bro doesn't acknowledge you spoke and you don't even care anymore. You curl yourself up, as small as you can go, and tuck your head between your knees.

Not a single sound comes from anywhere. Dirk and Dave must still be on the roof. You told them you wanted to be alone. Now you're not so sure.

You flinch when the futon shifts, a sudden weight dipping down that you weren't expecting.

"Hey." It comes so soft, low, like he's trying not to frighten a deer, that you almost can't believe it came from your Bro. But you'd know his voice anywhere, could pick it up in a crowd of a hundred, maybe a million people. "Dave, look at me."

And you do, because you've never been good at saying no, not to anyone, but especially not to him.

He doesn't sacrifice for you, keeps his shades on, hat pulled low over his head. He looks the way he's supposed to like this, and you almost feel a little better. You think he's going to say something, tongue darting out to lick his lips. But he hesitates (and it's something he taught you never to do, don't hesitate, don't give your enemy any openings, never hesitate for a moment), and instead, shifts, rolls a hand over to reveal his offering.

And it's a little apple juice, in the bottle instead of the box because you like them better, and they stay cooler longer. You choke on a laugh. This is so dumb.

You take it from him, don't open it, just hold it, and he sits there with you, gives you a minute to compose yourself.

"Sorry," you say, embarrassed, scrubbing at your eyes. You feel hot with shame. It's not like he even knows much about your friends, you think. He probably doesn't even care.

"You are the real Dave," he says finally, and it's monotone, but earnest. He pauses, clarifies, "To me. Doesn't matter what you think. Don't change the facts, not one bit."

And that just.

Means everything to you.

And it shouldn't, because it's kind of a mediocre thing to say, especially considering all the shit he's put you through, but the bar is real low right now, and there's not a huge line of people ready to test it. You don't say thank you, because it sounds cheesy, and Bro doesn't say anything at all, but he sits with you, turns on the TV so neither of you have to talk.

It is almost, almost, ALMOST enough to make you feel better, at least for a moment.

 

Dave and Dirk do come down, not much later, and you can see apprehension spread through Dave's entire body as soon as he sees Bro sitting there.

Bro, for his part, doesn't even look their way, eyes set firmly on the horseshit on before you. You think he's doing it on purpose.

"Hey, DS, we're gonna watch a movie with John," Dave says, and you know he's testing the waters.  _You cool?_   "Wanna come?"

You do. You absolutely do. There is almost nothing in this world you'd find more appealing than sitting awkwardly with your Bro who is trying to make you feel better. Like you said, the bar is real, REAL low.

"Yeah," you say, and then louder, "Fucking yes please. If Bro's up to carry me?" It's your little sorry, sorry you're running away. And maybe also just a little bit of you poking the bear. Curiosity. You wonder who you get that from.

Bro sighs out his nose, looks heavenward. "Fine. Sure."

The way he moves still makes you flinch, so much faster than you, still leaves you chasing his after image.

Bro picks you up and this time, it's not nearly as embarrassing, yet somehow, so much worse. He hefts you under his arm like a football, and you squawk in dismay to find yourself jostled like a sport metaphor.

"Why do I feel like I've been carried like this before," you mutter.

"Used to have to catch you if I wanted to bathe you,' Bro says, an answer you weren't expecting. "It's like you were trying to set the world record for Texas's smelliest toddler."

Dirk lets out a breathy laugh in front of you, and you're pretty sure you and Dave turn bright red at the same time.

"That is bullshit," Dave says, but you can tell he's unsure. "That's straight up defamation and I am going to call my lawyer and have him sue you."

"Pretty sure I got pictures somewhere," Bro says, and yeah, there is no way he is not being a shithead right now.

"No fucking way," you say.

"Can I see them?" Dirk asks.

You and Dave look at him in betrayed horror.

He lifts his hands up in a placating manner. "It's for science."

"Fuck you!" Dave says, but there's a smile starting there at the corner of his mouth.

Bro doesn't answer, lets out a stutter of air from his nose, and you only panic briefly when he turns into the bathroom instead of your room.

"Hey man, what the fuck?"

"Told your girlfriend you were showering, right?" He leans over, flips the tap, and you writhe in his grasp. Damn him and his stupid arm strength. "You need one. You smell like shit."

"Fuck you, she's my ex!" you grunt, pushing at him now, trying wiggle free.

Dave is actually laughing now, a monotone, "Hahaha oh my god," that's so much more irritating from the outside. "Dude, just take a shower, we can wait for you to finish."

"Judas!" You try rolling. Nothing works. "I'm gonna fucking punch you, dude, I'm so serious right now, this is bullshit."

"Yeah, yeah," Bro says, but his voice is warm, is almost something close to affection. He sticks his hand under the water, seems satisfied by what he finds. "You want me to strip you buck naked too, or are you a big enough boy to do that yourself?"

Dave, in the hallway, screeches between his teeth, and you see Dirk steer him into your room as Bro kicks the door shut behind him.

"No!" you yelp, elbowing his stomach. What is he made out of, rocks??

"Alright, alright." He sets you down on the closed lid of the toilet, leans back against the door.

All at once it's too quiet. You can hear Dave howling from across the hall. The steady beat of the water against the cubicle. The room is starting to heat up, condensation building up under your shades. You count the lines of grout between the tiles. Think about what Jade said. The Game isn't done with you. Sburb isn't done with you. Yet. She said yet. Your insides twist in knots.

"You cool?" Bro asks, voice soft.

You let out a shuddering breath, fingers curled into the fabric of your sweatpants. "Yeah," you mumble, and you're not sure if you mean it. "Yeah, I'm cool."

"Well." An intake of breath. A pause. "Message me, then. When you're done."

You look at him, raise an eyebrow. "You want me to pester you?" He never lets you pester him.

His mouth twitches. "Yeah, sure. Whatever, bro."

"Okay," you say weakly. Rub at your eyes, just pull off your shades because they're fogging up like crazy anyway. "Thanks," you add. "For uh. You know."

Bro nods, flexes his hands. "Yup." And then he's gone in a flash, somehow locked the door behind him.

You realize, as you shift to pull your shirt over your head, that there's something written on the mirror. You laugh, and then laugh again, and you definitely aren't crying at all, and definitely not because of the now dripping image of Hella Jeff scribbled shittily in the condensation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was rereading some of the shit davesprite said in act 6 again and it really bummed me out tbh


	6. la petite mort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave does NOT have a fetish, and he definitely isn't obsessed.  
> He just. Can't stop thinking about it.  
> This chapter is just dorito locos tacos fanfiction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyyyyyy it's been a few days i think but along with the holiday shopping season ruining my life, this chapter just kind of. wrote itself. bear with me here.  
> warnings for references to mild gore, i guess, and some puking. it's probably fine.  
> (also, dave refers to davesprite as dave because. well. he is, anyway.)

It's not that you don't like Dirk.

Because you do. And it comes to you easily. So, so easily. You accept him into your life with less struggle than anything you've ever done before, this smaller, less intimidating version of your brother. It's like there's something programmed into you, that you cannot physically (or emotionally, Jesus Christ) help. You see the dude and have to bare your deepest, most intimidate thoughts.

So the problem isn't that you don't like him.

You don't even really mind that he doesn't sleep like a normal person, that behind his shades he hides circles deep enough to bruise. You don't mind that he gets so absorbed in his work that he ignores you for hours sometimes, or that he hunches in the corner like a gremlin, muttering to himself while he untangles wires, or spins screws into place, or whatever fucked up shit he does as a hobby. Who are you to judge?

You're only just barely miffed at the definition of his arms, that he gave himself his first and only tattoo (you would die for that tattoo), and that he has such little interest in the actual flavor of food, that he'll just kind of eat whatever you hand him, and thank you for it (the first time you handed him a banana will haunt you for the rest of your life).

The problem isn't even that he looks like your Bro, or  _is_ Bro, anyway, because Bro is alive now, and you can see the differences between them as starkly as you can see the similarities, and you know that Bro would never be so desperate for your approval, or could even smile half as much. God, he really is an oven of a cuddler, even if you have to trick him into it (dude's got hangups, who doesn't).

Sure, maybe he's a little jumpy, quick to draw his sword on a guy, and maybe that makes you scream sometimes, but you do genuinely like spending time with him. Even if you catch him staring at his shades for uniquely long periods of time, or that his only two bathing habits are "I forgot and it's been a week" or spending so much time in the shower that the water has long gone cold when your turn rolls around.

You're definitely not still mad about the time you woke up and he was sitting on the computer desk, head in his hands, reeking of weed. You don't even know where he found weed. You don't even know if he knows how to  _smoke_  weed. You haven't thought of a creative way to ask him about it.

The real problem is, start to finish,

You cannot stop thinking about cutting off his head.

 

It haunts you at night when you watch him pace, and plagues your dreams when you fall asleep. You feel like a creep when you wake up and check to make sure he's still there, that his head is still in the right place. Of course it is, you watched Jane fix him, it shouldn't bother you this much.

You cuddle up to him when you watch videos and try not to think about how there's no scar across his throat, no indication it ever happened at all. He hasn't even brought it up once, has shown exactly zero hesitation in trusting your place beside him.

But it makes you cringe when he stretches his arms up, tilts his neck to the side with a sickening pop that seems to bother no one but you. You suck in air between your teeth if he rolls his head back too far to look at you. You want to beg him to stop when he curls himself up in his sleep so it's bent at a weird angle.

And it's not that you want to do it again, because you definitely definitely definitely don't, it's just.

You can't stop thinking about it.

You cannot stop thinking about your sword, slicing through his neck like butter, sharp as anything, the way his blood sprayed across your cape and soaked into your shirt (at least you're wearing red, at least you can't see it), the sensation of his dead body, loose and heavy in your arms, the way you cradled his head so delicately, still warm in your hands, like holding it the wrong way would squish it like a grape.

You've never actually killed another human being before.

The worst part is (start to finish), it was one of the easiest things you've ever done. You didn't even hesitate ( _and you shouldn't, don't ever hesitate_ ), just swung your metaphorical bat like a baseball all star during the season finale. Or whatever. It was like second nature, the placement of your feet, surging forward, the bend of your elbow and the weight of your sword, two-handed, in your grasp.

You feel sick.

You wish you could talk to Karkat about it. Or Terezi, because at least she would kinda crossways get it. But you can't, because they're not here.

Rose thinks you should tell him.

You think she's fucking nuts.

TG: have you ever had to kill someone rose  
TG: no everyone else got the easy way out they just had to murder a bunch of monsters filled with goo and oil or whatever that spit out weird rock gushers  
TG: meanwhile im over here in the killer club  
TG: just me myself and i  
TG: not even davesprite is invited this is a one man party of three  
TG: one to do the deed one to catch the head and the other to cradle his dead fucking body to my chest while i try not to puke  
TG: i can still smell it did i tell you that  
TG: some of that shit definitely went up my nose and it didnt make it back into his body when johns hot mom fixed him  
TG: hell never be complete again because i fucking snorted some of his life essence  
TG: like a hot hollywood celeb at a rap party  
TG: jonesing for a fix bc the hard works all done and all thats left is to let fucking loose  
TG: except the wrap party is also a cult meeting where you snort your family members blood  
TT: You can't keep calling Jane "John's hot mom".  
TG; am i wrong  
TG: and is that all youre taking away from this  
TT: No, on both accounts. I just think it's interesting that you're so heavily focused on this one act. You let Jade watch you die and didn't say a word to her about it, nor to me or John.  
TG: yeah because it wasnt her fault and it had to happen in order for shit to progress  
TG: thats the problem with time travel rose i keep telling yall but no one is listening  
TT: Hmm. That sure is some stuff you said about it not being someone else's fault.  
TG: okay see i get what youre trying to do here but it doesnt apply because i didnt actually have to do it  
TG: it wasnt like i knew it was the only way  
TG: it was like  
TG: like  
TG: okay imagine youve been given a job and the ad says one thing  
TG: like show up at our restaurant in a pizza costume be our new pizza dancing sign boy  
TG: but then you get there and its a james bond movie and you look through the scope and see your fiancee on the the side of the scope but also shes right behind you at the same time saying take the shot  
TG: and you do even though it goes against everything you have ever said or stood for  
TT: It's an interesting analogy, I'll say that.  
TG: did i tell you hes still dragging around that fucking sword  
TG: all broken and shit like it is  
TG: would it be rude of me to throw it away and get him a new one  
TT: I'll admit I don't know him well enough to make a judgement call on his behalf, but I will say from personal experience that I highly discourage it.  
TG: what why  
TT: There's most certainly a reason he's held onto it, Dave.  
TT: Perhaps it holds special meaning to him in some way.  
TT: A gift from the guardian he never met, or something similar.  
TG: no way he calls it the legendary piece of shit  
TG: far as i can tell its the same sword bro has  
TG: jesus did bros sword even come back it was really stuck on johns planet last i checked  
TT: Roxy used it to kill Betty Crocker in the final battle, but it was not in her inventory upon arriving here.  
TT: She, similarly, did not manage to remove it from the carapace.  
TT: Ironically, it was quite stuck in her sternum.  
TG: ugh okay so we can bump up the killer count to me and roxy  
TG: and even then i dont know if that counts because she was a bad guy and you have to defeat those anyway  
TG: also the not a human thing  
TG: but trolls are also people so  
TG: idk  
TT: One might argue that perhaps you were, in a way, attempting to defeat your own brand of "bad guy".  
TG: who dirk  
TG: no way hes pretty much harmless  
TG: at least as far as hurting anyone on our side i mean hes a big ol softy  
TG: i guess barring the emotional trauma side of things which you know not really any of your business  
TG: shit bananas insane fighter though lol dude is literally not afraid of death if hes even one percent sure that death wont be heroic or just  
TG: in retrospect thats a little fucked up  
TT: I was speaking about his alternate universe double, of course.  
TT: I can call him our father, if you like.  
TG: i do fucking not like thank you very much  
TG: and i mean yeah hes like  
TG: kinda shitty  
TG: to a point  
TG: it feels a little contrived  
TG: calling him a bad guy  
TG: at least in the sense that were discussing here  
TT: You don't think he falls under the category?  
TG: no its more like  
TG: idk bad guy in this sense of the word implies a kind of irredeemable evil  
TG: and i dont know if i believe that  
TT: You don't believe your brother is capable of being evil? Not even under the influence of the puppet we shalln't speak into existence?  
TG: no i think that i believe  
TG: well i dont know what i believe anymore  
TG: i definitely believe shallnt isnt a word  
TT: It is.  
TG: okay it totally isnt but i also kinda dont care  
TG: but it feels wrong to call him evil  
TG: before the final battle dirk and i had this big long discussion about bro and all the shit that went down my whole life  
TG: you know like you do when you meet your alternate ectosideways clone parent  
TT: Of course.  
TG: and how he feels like hes struggled all his life with trying to be a good person  
TG: and working to make the right decisions  
TG: and i dont know if bro ever did because well  
TG: i mean obviously ive never asked but it kinda seems like he didnt  
TG: and before i thought  
TG: i thought that line was a lot clearer in the sand than maybe it actually is  
TG: see i dont know if i believe that a human can be completely evil  
TG: once again in the context were using here  
TT: You're wondering if killing Dirk, despite his quite literal permission and, in fact, suggestion, makes you responsible for some part in the idea of evil.  
TT: Do you feel evil, Dave?  
TG: no  
TG: well  
TG: i dont feel good about it  
TT: .......................  
TG: rose a million times i cannot fucking tell him any of this  
TT: Have you considered telling your brother? Or Dave?  
TG: nah i dont think davesprite would care tbh hes a little wrapped up in not being a bird and his whole thing with jade  
TT: There's a thing with Jade?  
TG: see if he didnt tell you i certainly fucking cant  
TT: My cross-timeline brother that you refer to hasn't deemed to pester me as of yet.  
TT: If I am being honest I find myself a little hurt. Perhaps you could consider telling him to check in?  
TT: It would be reassuring, if nothing else. I know Roxy would love to meet him.  
TG: yeah idk about that hes been kind of  
TG: going through some shit  
TG: ill bring it up though i swear  
TT: Alright, thank you.  
TT: Now, about your Bro.  
TG: okay we didnt need to circle back on this  
TG: i cannot tell bro that ive been pseudo-fantasizing about cutting off the head of his alternate universe clone  
TT: The fact that you refer to it as fantasizing is not even the most fascinating part of this entire car crash of a conversation.  
TG: rose thems just the facts alright you do not tell a guy that you keep thinking about cutting off his head and you definitely dont tell him that you are questioning whether it was really the right thing to do  
TG: and before you mention bro again i would just like to remind you this is the man who kept swords in the fridge and as far as i can tell based on dirks general neuroses actually fucking loves puppets as like  
TG: a hobby  
TT: Dave, I think perhaps it is time you evaluated whether or not your continued existence in the apartment is healthy for you.  
TT: You cannot live the rest of your life tiptoeing around him.  
TT: I don't know everything, but I do know that continuing to allow the kind of trauma you suffered to fester will ultimately lead to your downfall.  
TG: yeah and im sure youve been real big on talking to your mom and patching things right up  
TT: ........  
TG: hey shit i didnt mean that rose im sorry i didnt mean that  
TG: i know its hard  
TG: i dont know how to talk to him either  
TG; i never thought id have the chance and now that i do well  
TG: i dont know what to say  
TT: Yes.  
TT: Yes I find myself in a similar situation.  
TT: I think I'd like to go now, Dave, if that's alright with you.  
TG: yeah  
TG; yeah its cool  
TG: sorry  
TG: again  
TT: I know, Dave. It's alright.  
TG: kay later i guess  
TT: Goodnight, Dave.  


\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] \-- 

 

You do think about what Rose said. At least as much as you ever think about anything she says. It's not really like you two were especially good at being close on the meteor, not in either timeline (as far as you can tell, it's just you and Davesprite who remember things with perfect clarity). But she's been your friend for years, and you trust her. You just cannot fucking find a way to bring it up, not to anybody.

You try with Dave-Not-Actually-a-Sprite, first. He at least cared enough about you to come back and change your fate, dooming himself in the process (you wonder, errantly, if he's still doomed, or if his continued existence is doomed enough already). You figure maybe he'll at least listen to you before he calls you a freak. And he's kind of you, anyway, so the percentage of success seems higher.

Of course, it's hard to get him alone. He spends most of his time in the living room, harassing Bro, and you gotta say, kid's got some major fucking balls. You wonder if dooming yourself just does that to a guy. Maybe he's just braver than you.

But Bro's been acting more normal lately, disappearing into the ether whenever you enter a room, and minding his own fucking business. Without the traps waiting for you, you're starting to think he might be attempting actual goddamn manners. Or, he's finally lost it. The latter seems more likely.

"Hey," you say, flopping next to Dave. You narrowly miss The Spot, and your ass thanks you. "Can I talk to you?"

Dave paused the game he was playing as soon as you spoke, but he hesitates now, eyeing you suspiciously behind his shades. You stare. He stares back. "Well," he sighs, handing you a controller, "you're already fuckin' here."

He's playing Mad Snacks Yo III, which came out in your absence but ported itself to Bro's Xbox like a gift from the gods of shitty video games. You wonder if that's you, now.

"So I know you weren't really around for the final battle," you start, and know immediately that it's the wrong thing to say.

"I... was," he says, slowly. Winces. "Well, 33.333 repeating percent of me was, anyway."

"Yeah," you say, but you already don't want to talk about it. That's really fucked up. "Kind of a bummer I never got to see your sick moves," you offer.

He drops his eyes, shrugs. "I wouldn't have wanted you to see me like that."

You remember tossing your dead body into the lava so Jade wouldn't have to see it. Ugh your entire set of lives is so morbid. "I get it. Still really brave, though."

He shrugs again. Shit, you're fucking floundering here. Somebody toss you a goddamn life ring. Life saver? Isn't that a candy? Whatever.

"So on the roof, I had to. Um. Well okay we were on Dirk's planet right, because I guess that's just where things had to happen? Terezi was there but not til later. Anyway the Jacks got a hold of Dirk and I had to... Uhhhh." Wow, there's really no way to say this.

Davesprite, by merit of being you, and familiar with your own personal brand of horseshit, is not amused. "Can you just spit it out already? You're messing with my combo, dude."

Shit he's right. Your character lays like a limp noodle while his is currently glitching through fifteen layers of bullshit. He's still an asshole, though.

"Look, man, I'm really trying to lay my soul bare here. You're kinda harshing our combined mellow."

He snorts. "Please, we're about as harsh as marshmallows."

"Haha. Yeah."

It's silent for a long minute, nothing but the clicking of controllers and quiet curses under your breath.

"I had to -"

"Jade told me that Sburb isn't done with us yet and I don't know what that means," Davesprite blurts, before you can get the rest of your words out.

"Um," you say.

"Cool, glad I got that out. What's your thing?"

"Dude," you whisper, mortified.

He purses his lips, clicks faster. "I'm trying not to think about it." His character flips upside down so fast that his head twists through his spine. You shudder. He notices. "You cool?"

"Don't change the subject." You press your fingers to your temples, stop yourself before you pull a full dad motion. "What the fuck did she mean when she said that? What were you talking about?"

Dave looks uncomfortable, and you roll your eyes where he can't see. Jesus, yourself is so embarrassing. "I don't care about your shitty relationship." Pause. "Well I do, but only in the ways where it affects my relationship with her. My friendship, I mean."

"Ugh, shut up." He shoves you, but it's playful. You stare at the freckles on his arm. Your arm. Ugh, weird. "Look, man, if I knew, I'd tell you. But I'm not a game construct anymore. And she didn't really tell me anything. We were talking about baby grandpa being depressed his grandma's dead or some shit, and she said, and I quote," he pitches his voice up, and it's so surprisingly similar to the goofy tone she uses that it actually makes you a little uncomfortable, "'I think he was feeling kind of bummed out at first, on account of his grandma version of me not existing yet and everything', end quote." He shifts, pulls one of his feet so it's tucked close under his leg. "It really freaked me out. I highly doubt Grannysmith Jade is the only surprise we'd have to deal with."

"Apple reference, nice," you say, and offer him a bump.

He takes it. "Thanks. I really thought it was kinda reaching."

"Reaching for an apple pun."

"Hell yeah." He coughs, glances at you, then away. "So like. Listen... If Grandma Harley does come back -"

"It's English, I think. Jake's last name."

Roll of the eyes. "Whatever. If she comes back, other people could. Could come back. From the dead, I mean. Or maybe into existence at all." He glances around, like he's just now noticing something missing. "Where's Dirk?"

You feel a little smug, and definitely way too proud. "Sleeping. Finally convinced him last night. Don't have the heart to wake him when he gets like that."

Dave hums. "How many days, this time?"

You grimace. Always the realist, this Dave. Can't enjoy anything for five seconds without poking a hole in your confidence balloon. "Three."

"Huh. Personal record's a week. At least as far as I we know."

"He's pretty dodgy," you confess. "I think he just doesn't want to freak me out. I know he used to balance being awake on Derse and Earth at the same time, but honestly, it's kinda fucking me up how he just. _Goes_ like that."

He nods, like that makes sense, twists his controller around in his hand nervously. "I just think we should be prepared if. If maybe Dirk's Dave? Comes back?"

You pause to consider that. "I don't know if I can even visualize myself as an old dude."

Dave makes a fake gagging noise. "God, if that ever happens just kill me so I can avoid the further embarrassment."

"Only if you kill me first."

He snorts a laugh. "What did you want to tell me? Before I so rudely interrupted?"

And you want to say it, you do.

Say it.

_I can't stop thinking about cutting off Dirk's head._

Say it.

_I keep thinking about how easy it was to cut off Dirk's head and I can't stop wondering if that makes me a bad person._

C'mon, just say it.

_Did I make the right decision?_

What you finally say is, "Does it bother you that Bro is back?"

He drops his controller, stares at you blankly. "Um."

"Because it's kind of fucking me up how chill you seem to be."

Dave's face darkens, eyebrows pulling low, mouth turned down. "I am  _not_ chill."

"Oh really?" you drawl, and can't help the way it comes out, spiteful and maybe a little cruel. "Because far as I can tell, you've been spending near every night buddied up with him like it ain't even a problem."

He shrugs helplessly. "He's just. I don't know. It's kind of pathetic." He pauses the game, drops his eyes down to his lap. "I want him to be a better person. Like, I really, REALLY want him to be. I feel like if I got a second chance, then I should -" He looks at you, and it's a little jarring, seeing your own sadness reflected back at you. "I should be able to do something about it."

You stare at him and think, _Is this really what I look like all the time?_ It can't possibly be, of course. He's got freckles dusting across his nose, in places you never have before. It makes you - him, fuck - look younger. "Isn't that the point though?" you mumble. "Of second a chance. To do something different?"

He raises his eyebrows at you, snorting softly. When he speaks, it's quiet, maybe a little irritated. "I am."

 

 So you don't tell him. It's kind of a bust, and has you questioning yourself more than ever. That leaves. Well. You don't know. Roxy saw Rose die, in the alternate timeline, but since she's the only other person who remembers everything aside from you, DS and John, you think it's probably unfair to unload on her. Also she's not actually your mom and you don't want it to get. Weird.

You could ask John, maybe, since he saw a lot of shit go down, but it's kind of a bummer subject and you're really, really happy with how things are going on that front. You don't have Karkat to bug, anymore, so it's back to constantly barraging John. He's okay with it though. Number one best friend spot is secure AF.

TT: Hey,  
TT: Just realized you've probably never had a Doritos Locos Taco, and that's a crime against humanity I cannot physically stand for. 

Dirk pestering you from the shower is such commonplace that you don't even jump now. Sometimes you get him and Dave confused though. Orange ass text. You're still not sure how he's using your handle at the same time as you.

TG: alright that sounds like a super made up thing you just said  
TT: Google it, you fucking plebeian. You're gonna love it.

You do.

TG: holy fuck  
TG: this is literally the most disgusting thing i can imagine and yet  
TG: i have never wanted anything more in my entire life  
TT: Had a feeling you might say that.  
TG: wait werent humans extinct how tf do you know anything about them  
TT: Historical documents purporting their use in classic human culture as a "dank snack" date back to centuries before our kind's final demise.  
TG: what really  
TT: No, Dave.  
TT: I'm obviously fucking joking.  
TT: They were featured at a somewhat obsessive length in your alternate self's movies. I wish I still had them to show you. I think you would have enjoyed them very much.  
TG: so these things literally came out like a month and a half ago  
TG: how am i supposed to trust theyre any fucking good  
TT: You can't. But the memes are endless, and I have put a lot of work researching them in the past.  
TT: Beyond everything else I've said, I also begged Jane to try one for me.  
TG: did she go for that  
TT: No, not even in the slightest.  
TG: you know we can just go get some theres probably a taco bell not too far from here  
TT: Yeah. I've seen them on Google Maps. There's nineteen within driving distance.  
TT: I don't suppose they deliver? 

Shit, Dave, way to shove your foot right into your own fucking mouth. Just what your agoraphobic future bro needs: to be reminded that he doesn't want to leave the house.

TG: well  
TG: no  
TG: god can you imagine though  
TG: the raw and addictive power of being able to have fast food delivered to your house  
TG: id never fucking leave again  
TT: Heh.  
TT: That certainly would be a novel concept, were someone to create such a powerful service.  
TT: A shame, really.  
TG: okay youre being cryptic so either this is a trait you genetically passed on to rose or you know some shit i dont  
TT: Lettuce say,  
TT: Perhaps both are true.  
TG: dude did you just food pun me what are you a crockbert  
TT: It's just the hazard of brain to shades power, Dave. Sometimes the translations can be a little off.  
TG: you totally did it on purpose i know you did im goin to come in there and arrest you  
TT: I think it is very possible that what you find will not be to your liking. And also, the door is locked.  
TG: well fine  
TG: ill forgive you for now but i wont forget this grave and egregious error of dad humor so easily  
TT: I am already screenshotting this and sending it to Jane and Roxy in case of my future murder.

It's like all of your insides flip upside down at once, this ceaseless slamming of your heart in your ears, a tight, squirming feeling in your chest that leaves you a little breathless. Your palms start to sweat, your head feels light. Are you hyperventilating? You feel like you might be.

Orange text continues to flash across your eyes but you can't read it, suddenly all too aware of the calluses on your fingertips, and the scars that wind around your hands like cat scratches that haven't quite faded.

Get your shit together, you tell yourself, head in your hands. He's just dicking around. Everything is fine.

You think about the tufts of his hair, sticky with blood, clumped between your fingers, and shudder so hard you almost vomit.

You hear the water heater turn off with a heavy clunk, and purposefully loud footsteps crossing the hall before your door creaks open, ever so slowly.

"Hey," Dirk says, and you let all the air out of your lungs. You didn't even realize you weren't breathing. You know he's standing there, either completely or mostly nude.

You look up. Thank Christ, at least he put a towel on this time.

He looks sheepish, and a little like you, hair sopping wet, hanging in his eyes, shades pushed up on top of his head. There is concern there, in the wrinkle between his brow, the purse of his lips. God, he really does look so much like you.

Or you look like him, anyway.

"Sorry," you say, still hunkered in your computer chair. "Just got really caught up in this SBaHJ page."

He doesn't mention that the canvas is almost entirely blank, or that you'd started doodling a Dorito taco in the corner.

"Was just worried I'd said something to upset you," he says, and it's that hesitant voice, soft, like he isn't aware of the proper volume to use. "I know that sounds fucking idiotic, but my brain gets stuck on things like that. I'm trying not to apologize for it nearly as much." There is almost a zero percent chance that he doesn't notice something is totally up with you, but is too worried and emotionally constipated to mention it. God, this family blows at communicating.

"I think you're doing okay," you say, shrugging. Your head feels like your brain is trying to escape. One might say you're feeling a bit light-headed. "Haven't apologized to me once."

He scratches at his chest absently. You notice the variety of marks across his body and think about how he's been fighting his whole life for survival. Wonder if he ever thinks about that. "Sorry, then, if I did offend you," he says. And then, "Can you please stop staring at me? It's making me a little uncomfortable."

You let out a laugh. It comes out so earnest, so unexpected, so completely unlike him that you just can't help yourself. God, he's so weird.

"Okay," you say between giggles. You don't mention how hypocritical that is. "I am so sorry for daring to view your godly visage. Forgive me?"

He huffs, puts his hands on his hips. "It is clear that you are completely fine, and that I can leave to resume my ablutions in peace."

"Go in peace, then," you say, a little morbidly, and the eye roll he gives you is so magnificent, you warm from the inside out.

You are going to get him that Dorito Locos taco.

 

It's a shitty plan, really. You don't know why you're doing this. You don't even think you want a taco that bad. You certainly don't know if you're up to this task at all.

Which is, of course, why you leave Dave and Dirk in your room, sat on your bed, with a quiet "I've got this," all you say before you leave to accomplish The Task.

It could go very badly, you think, walking the way to the living room like you're giving the green mile her final bow. You keep your hand pressed to the wall like it can hide you, or do anything at all. It gives you some stability, anyway.

You're just asking him a question. It's just one little favor. He owes you that much.

Bro is lying on the futon, arm over his eyes, new shades curled in his other hand, which drags on the carpet beside his hat pile.

It infuriates you, a little, to see him like that, body lax, acting like he's got no cares in this fucking world.

You let that feeling build up in your chest, and find it at war with your desperate need to make sure he isn't dying again. Fuck you couldn't even get the katana out of his chest.

You wonder, hysterically, if he's got a scar. Holy shit you wonder if  _you've_ got a scar. You hadn't thought to check.

"If you're just gonna stand there and stare, I'd appreciate you do it somewhere else," he says, and you jump a foot in the air.

"Sorry," you say, fingers curling into the chipping paint of the hallway door.

He must not be expecting that, because you watch him inhale and hold it. Lift his arm up away from his eyes. Jesus, dude's got bags you could see from outer space. "Dave," he says softly.

And it's. It's not what you were expecting. You keep expecting him to be the same, and he keeps not doing that. You're so frustrated. So confused. "Hey," you say lamely. He stares and you realize he's waiting for you to speak. Fuck him, you're not that much of a conversation hog. Well maybe you are. You talk to yourself, more than anyone. And maybe doubly so now, what with Davesprite back in the picture. Okay you're doing it again.

"Okay so, hear me out, alright?" You pull out your phone, your visual aid, and recite as much of a speech as you managed to put together (which to be fair, wasn't much; "fuck this I'll wing it" is practically the meaning of your goddamn name).

"So there's this new thing, we only missed it by like a month, so there's no use writing to Game Bro about it, but Dirk said the other version of me - I mean obviously not the current other version, more like a future past version I guess - was obsessed with them, so it'd kind of be a sin for me not to try one? And it's not like we've been there recently, so it kind of seems like a crime not to visit, and I can't drive, obviously, because last time I was inside a human car I was thirteen, but Dirk still can't leave the house, not to mention Dave, kinda fucked up we never got him a wheelchair or something, right? And anyways it isn't far, it wouldn't even be a ten minute drive --"

He holds up a hand, stops you mid-sentence. "Dave," and his voice is a painful silencer, steady, patient. "What the fuck are you trying to ask me."

"I want a Doritos locos taco," you practically shout, and sound like a child for it.

He sits up, rubs at his eyes. "Alright. I have no idea what or where that is."

"Taco Bell," you say, quieter this time.

He looks at you, still clutching the door like you're about to slam it shut, and drags a hand through his hair, looks skyward. "Okay."

"Um. Okay...?"

He shoves his shades back on, replaces his hat with the closest one on the stack. It's red. It's very strange. "C'mon. I'll take you. Been meaning to get outta the house, anyway."

"Uh. Alright." It feels weird, putting your shoes on in the living room, like you're a kid getting ready for school all over again. You don't put on socks. You don't remember where they are.

Bro's loitering by the door, keys in hand, when you return from reporting the good news. He spins them between his thumb and pointer finger, back and forth, back and forth. It's been a long time since you've seen those keys. Oh my God he still has that shitty lanyard from fifth grade camp. You can't remember if the gesture was genuine or ironic. Holy fuck how embarrassing.

Dirk follows you out, hands still covered in oil from one of his projects. He wipes them on his pants. Well at least you know why he wears black. Gross. He reaches out a hand like he's going to stop you, touches your elbow lightly instead. "Pester me? If things get too weird, I mean." There is a good chance he'll pester you anyway. You don't mind too much, are used to it now.

"Yeah," you say, and can't stop the way your mouth curls up at the side. "Yeah, man."

"And bring me back a beefy nacho burrito, too," he adds, and okay, that's the thing he really wanted, because his eyes are super fucking serious, brows a severe, straight line.

"Okay, okay, don't carried away," you snicker, bump his shoulder with yours. "It's not my money we're spending."

"No shit," Bro calls from where he's leaning against the door jam, waiting for you.

Dirk looks at him in challenge, shades to shades, and completely serious he says, "Two beefy nacho burritos."

Bro does not bother replying, slips out the door before you and is already standing in front of the elevator by the time you get your shit together.

You hesitate. Bro never takes the elevator. You've seen him swing down the stairs like some kind of monkey on a jungle gym a thousand times over. You didn't even know what the elevator was for the first few years of your life.

He sighs through his nose, tilts his head towards the elevator. "You coming or not?"

"I don't know, are you gonna push me down the stairs if I press the button?" you snap, with a surprising amount of bite. Oh fuck. You said that out loud. Oh fuck.

His reaction is all of Dirk's exasperation, from the downward pull of his lip to the slight rise in his eyebrows. The fact that you can read it now, see the cracks in his mask, makes you more uncomfortable than you've ever been. "Jesus pantshitting Christ," is all he says. He elbows the button and then steps back as it opens, gives a gesture that clearly means, _"after you."_

You stare. He curtsies. You scowl.

This is just another game, you think, and you take the bait.

Here is what you expect will happen: you, darting forward, reaching for the open door. Him, grabbing you by the scruff of the neck, monotone voice, "did you think it would be that easy?"

Here is what does happen: you dart forward, a single step, faster than you used to be, and he doesn't move. He watches you, stares blankly as the doors to the elevator close with you inside. Your ride down is quiet, just the sound of your slightly uneven breath and the hum of machinery.

He meets you in the garage, exits the stairwell just as you're stepping out.

"Getting slow," you say, just to test the waters.

He scoffs. "Faster'n you. That performance inside the hall? Fucking abysmal."

"I was pausing for dramatic effect. Also, fuck you." You follow him towards his truck, and feel a surge of affection when you see it again, beat up and cloudy blue, the one thing from your childhood you love with precisely no irony at all. You grasp the door handle, press your cheek to the window, ignore how cool it is. You're so glad that Sburb returned it to you. You remember rides to the public pool, sitting in the back on the way home ( _you're not getting in the truck lookin' like a drowned cat_ ), eating junk food ( _kid fucking watch the carpet, Christ, it costs an arm and a leg to clean this thing_ ), hanging halfway out the window in the summer when the AC wasn't working. You threw up for the first time in this truck. There's still a stain left on the rug, you remember.

"Are you gonna start making out with the damn thing? Because I'm about to drive away and leave you here."

You try to hide the way you jump, frown at him through the window. "Can't a man reacquaint himself with the only love his young life has ever known? I was practically fucking raised in this truck. We have a special bond that no one will ever understand, and its continued existence is a testament to the strength of that bond. Not a single man, woman, or troll could get between me and this truck."

You swear, just for a moment, he almost smiles. "Okay, whatever. Just get the fuck in, already."

You jiggle the handle aggressively. "I will if you fucking unlock it."

"I am rolling my eyes, right now," he deadpans, leaning across the seats to let you in. "That's how absolutely fucking ridiculous you're being."

"I'm a kid, that's my fucking job." You crawl inside, marvel at how much easier it is now, half a foot taller and three years older. The inside smells a little musty, like old french fries and a bit of smoke. You remember that, too. How he never let you catch him, but you could smell it on him when he came inside, and you always wondered where he kept his cigarettes, because you never found any in the apartment.

"I thought you were supposed to be a god," he says conversationally.

"Well," you start, hesitate. You look at your feet. Yep, there's the puke stain. That's the good shit. "I don't know about any of that. Anymore, I mean."

"Sure look the part," Bro says, staring pointedly at your godtier garb.

And.

Okay, maybe he does have a point, you have been wearing it for almost a full month, but you've also been wearing it for three years. You kinda. Forgot about that.

Oh my God you're wearing a cape to a fucking Taco Bell.

"They're self-cleaning," you say, defensively.

"Uh-huh," he says, in a way that clearly means, _"I have the grossest kid in the multiverse."_

"I've been wearing them since I was thirteen," you say, and that literally startles a sound out of him that you've never heard before.

"Dave," he says, and you only barely hunch when he puts a hand behind your headrest, twisting around to back out of his parking space, "that's really fucking gross."

You force down a nervous laugh. "Yeah, I know."

Bro just hums, and you wonder if he can even see in this dim-ass garage with his shades on.

You don't talk for a few minutes, let him get out onto the road. It's barely noon and it's already heating up inside the cab, so you flick on the fans. A blast of hot air hits you both in the face and you curse in unison, scramble to turn the grates.

"Guess some things never change," he sighs, and turns the crank on the window instead.

"Yeah," you mumble. You realize that's not true, though. Not really. You don't know how to talk to him, anymore. Maybe you never did. Maybe you were always just filling the silence between you.

You glance at him, and when he doesn't seem to notice, eyes on the road, you stare openly. He seems the same as you remember, crooked nose, pointed eyebrows, stubble on his chin from a few days not shaving. You see a lot of Dirk in there, when you pick him apart, like the fractals of a mosaic. The sharp line of his jaw, the prominent Adam's apple. Thin eyelashes you see when he blinks, how he furrows his brow when he notices you staring -- ah, shit.

A hand comes up and mashes you right in the face, soft leather across your cheek, fingers in your nose. "Ain't anyone ever teach you staring's rude?"

"Guess I didn't have the best teacher," you sneer, shoving him away from you.

"Nah," he says, but he's chewing on his cheek now, the same way Dirk does when he's trying not to smile.

It's hard.

It's really, really hard for you.

This is the dude that really fucked up your childhood. Who you used to sword fight on the roof. Who tortured you with weird puppets. Who used to bathe you, who you used to build forts with. Who ground you into the pavement. Who drove you to the pool in the summer, who taught you to swim.

It's really, really hard.

You know what you said on the roof, and you mean it, you do. You hold a deep, genuine grudge against him, and you still want to ask him, every day, what the fuck.

But you also love him. And how can you not, the only guardian you've ever known, who taught you to speak, to play music and rap, who split a meteor in two for you. It makes your chest tight, makes your stomach churn. You are so, so deeply hurt by everything he's done, and you still love him.

You think about what Davesprite said. _I want him to be a better person._

And you wonder.

And you wonder if you do, too.

His eyes flick to you behind his glasses and he huffs. It's weird, a little too earnest. "Stop fucking staring at me, kid. It's making me uncomfortable."

And you can't help snorting, because Jesus Christ. Your life is a sitcom. "Don't you think it's kind of fucked up that you haven't aged at all?" comes out instead of "sorry."

This time, when you reach a stop light, he does actually turn his head to look at you. Opens his mouth, closes it. Taps his fingers on the steering wheel. "I was dead, Dave."

"Yeah," you say. That's true. Guess you can't age if you're dead. "You missed three birthdays, too."

He sighs, puts his elbow on the sill and leans against his hand while you wait for the light. Downtown traffic blows. "You want me to buy you a cake?"

You consider that. It might be kind of funny, celebrating your birthday not only three years late, but with an additional four, almost five months tacked on. The pictures of your birthday in the spring would certain make for a laughable moment some time in the future. But maybe that's a bit much, even for you. "Nah," you say. "I'll stick with the tacos today."

"A'ight. Show me the picture again?"

You do.

He squints at it, frowns like it's taking all his concentration. "And you're sure it's real."

"Dirk is a connoisseur on all things Dave Strider," you say. Add, "Future Dave Strider, I mean."

"You keep saying that." He doesn't look at the stop light, but seems to know when it changes, anyway. Ugh, so weird. Your Bro is so weird. "I don't really know what it means."

"It's a long story," you say. "I kinda thought it was self-explanatory."

"Sure, if you like things that make no fucking sense," he sighs, and you're almost there now, practically vibrate in your seat.

"I kinda do," you say, picking at a small hole in the seat.

He smacks your little pizza hands like some kind of peripheral vision ninja. "Don't fuck with my car."

"Your car is a piece of shit," you grunt, rub at your hand and pout.

"Says the kid who was literally waxing poetic not ten minutes ago."

"It was supposed to be ironic," you lie, badly. "It's the only car I've ever been in, what the fuck else do I have for frame of reference?"

He thinks about that, drums a beat on the wheel with his thumbs. Bro drives like a lady in her nineties, hands at ten and two. "Bus," he offers, finally.

You blink. What. "What?"

"When you were a baby," he says, shrugs a little. "Couldn't afford a car back then. We took the bus loads of times."

You struggle to find something to say. You didn't know that. You didn't know a lot about him, you're finding out, and the whiplash it's giving you is seriously fucking with you. "Oh," you manage.

"I probably have an old Kodak somewhere," Bro says. He glances at you for a long moment, then away, pulls into the parking lot. "Things weren't always --" His hands flex, like he can't control them, and he curls them tight on the wheel. "Well. Anyways. Shit's fucked sideways now. Gotta make the best of it, I guess." He rolls the window back up, and only pauses when you're about to climb out of the car.

"What."

"Are you really going to wear the cape inside?"

Just for that, you tug on your tight little hood, and storm towards the building.

You are at least 30 percent sure that the high-pitched sound you hear behind your back is Bro, but you're almost too afraid to check, so you don't. Fuck him, he's the parental guardian here. Your disaster of an outfit is on his shoulders.

 

"Oh my God," you moan, mouth full.

Bro hums.

"Oh my fucking God," you say.

"Shut up," he says, and lettuce falls out of his mouth.

"We have to go back," you say, and your voice is so fucking serious. "Bro, we need to go back. I cannot physically stop myself from eating each and every one of these tacos."

He wrinkles his nose, takes another bite.

You smack him in the arm with your third wrapper. "Dude, I am so fucking serious right now. Dirk will literally skin me alive with that broken fucking sword and then you'll have my death on your hands, too, so we'll be sideways even, I guess. But Davesprite is gonna flip the fuck out either way and I'm worried if I don't bring him a taco he's one disappointment away from crying."

What he says is, "Christ, is he STILL carrying that thing around?"

"Yeah," you say, like it's obvious. And then, "How the fuck do you know?"

He shrugs, wipes orange dust across his mouth. "Spooked him on the roof."

"Haha, yeah, he's like that." You think about that for a minute. Dirk hasn't shown much inclination for interacting with Bro, beyond his initial arrival and the problems it caused. He hasn't said anything to you about it.

You remember, with perfect clarity, Dirk sitting on the computer desk, head in his hands, his clothes drenched in the cloying stench of weed.

"Did you fucking get Dirk _high_?" It comes out so much louder than you meant it to, and you spit Dorito crumbs all over his shirt.

Bro brushes them off absently, hooks a hand around the wheel as he pulls a U-turn. "Hardly. He had maybe two or three proper hits. Fast learner, though."

That's. That's the weirdest thing you've ever heard your bro say. "You never offered me weed," you say, and you're absolutely not pouting.

He snorts a little, chokes on another taco. "You were a little kid."

"I'm still a kid," you protest, softly. "Dude, he's impressionable. You can't just a kid high."

"He can make his own decisions," Bro says, and his voice is steady, gentle confidence. It's foreign, in that way. Bro has never been particularly genuine with you. "He was having a rough night."

"Most nights are rough nights," you admit, but you're a little hurt Dirk hasn't deigned to mention it to you.

"It's easy to get caught up in yourself," Bro says, so soft you almost miss it.

You think about ambushing Dave, the way he'd looked at you, irritation leaking through the cracks, how Dirk smiles with the left side of his mouth first.

"I keep thinking about cutting Dirk's head off," you blurt.

Bro slams on the break so hard your seatbelt strangles you, and the cars behind him lay on their horns. It's like he realized what he did before he completely stopped, starts up again and pulls off into a CVS parking garage immediately.

"Dude what the fuck?" you gripe, undo your belt and rub at your neck. Gag a little. "You could have fucking killed us!"

Bro isn't listening, or he is, and is ignoring you, wheel clutched in his hands, staring straight ahead.

"I'm serious, dude, that was really fucking dangerous, what if we had been in an intersection? I don't have time powers anymore, dawg, I can't bring you back if you die again. Someone could've rammed their bumper up our asses and we'd be crushed up like a bag of chips under a fat dude's ass."

"Dave," he says, deadly quiet.

"He probably didn't mean to sit down, y'know, but who's considerate enough to check, these days, anyway-"

"Dave," Bro snaps.

Your eyes drop to your lap. The garage is empty, a little dark. A light flickers by the emergency exit.

"I can't stop," you mumble, stare at your hands. They're orange, like Davesprite, like Dorito dust. "It's not like. Like an obsession, or anything. I think? And it's not like it feels good. Like I want to do it again, because I don't. But every time I close my eyes..." You curl your hands into fists. "I can still hear it. Fuck, I can still feel it." You laugh, a little hysterically. "Some of his blood went up my nose."

Bro takes a deep breath, but you keep going.

"And I can't fucking tell him, because whenever I try to explain, it sounds like I have a weird fetish, like hey, man, I know we've only known each other a month, but I keep thinking about what your decapitated head feels like in my hands."

Bro doesn't say anything to you, and when you look up, his face is blank, set in stone like so much granite, and you want to cry. Then he's moving, unbuckling his seatbelt, and you flatten yourself against the door, reach for your specibus without pause.

But he just opens the driver side, rolls out of the car, and you watch him come around towards you, choke on protests.

"Over," he commands, ripping your door open. You curl away from him, and he shoves you brusquely. "Dave, move it, now."

Confused, you scramble to the other side of the cab, press yourself into the space between the steering wheel and the window. "What the fuck," you whisper.

"I'm teaching you how to drive," he says simply, pulling the belt over his lap.

You let out a sound that is neither a laugh not a screech. " _Now???_ "

"Yes." He leans over, ignores how you cringe, turns the key for you. "Look, here, you gotta put it in neutral first."

It's bizarre, what he's doing right now. He doesn't blink when you slowly unfold, doesn't gripe when you hesitate to follow his instructions. You go around the garage a few times, practically careen into a pole on three separate occasions (Bro swears between his teeth, lunges at the wheel with a startled yelp every time). At the point in which it's been too long and Dirk starts to message you, once then twice, then enough that you can't see in front of you, Bro plucks your glasses off your face and tucks them into his polo.

He makes you drive in circles until you can pull into a space and then back out appropriately (you still release the clutch too early sometimes), before he finally lets you out of the garage, guides you back to the Taco Bell. If you didn't know better, you'd think he was trying to cheer you up.

He's quiet in the drive thru, doesn't complain when you order five times as many tacos as originally promised, just throws his wallet into your lap.

It rolls open and you see one of your shitty selfies stuck in the bill fold. You... don't know how to feel about that.

He doesn't speak til you're waiting for your food, his feet up on the dashboard, hat skewed to the side after his acrobatics to keep you from killing yourself. "You should tell him," he says, like it's just that simple.

You swallow around the lump in your throat. "Yeah?"

"Mm," he says, nods. He still has your shades. "You'll feel better."

You squeeze the steering wheel, run a thumb over the ridges. Ten and two. Ten and two. "You think so? I feel like it's a really fucked up thing to say."

He shrugs. "He's a fucked up guy."

Well. You can't fault his logic.

"I'd want to know," he says so softly you jump. When you look at him, seat leaned back, you can see his eyes over the brim of his shades, expression as open as you've ever seen it. "If it was me," he clarifies. "I'd want to know."

You lick your lips, shift on your own. "Alright."

 _I'd want to know_.

"Okay."

 

Dirk is pacing in the living room when you get home, and the look he gives you when you enter, sans shades and wielding tacos, is so unimpressed you're surprised he doesn't fucking ground you.

"Dave -" he starts.

"Guess who can officially sort of drive," you announce, eager to ignore the problem. "Sorry," you add, handing him the bag. "Bro decided we've mooched off rides long enough. Gave me a couple lessons."

Dirk doesn't look like he completely buys that, eyes narrowed behind shades, but he nods.  
He's a little disappointed that he didn't get to see your first response, but you think Dave more than makes up for it, the way he shouts, "Holy FUCK," at the top of his lungs. When Bro finally makes it back in, smoke clinging to the back of his heels, you frown, but he just flips you off, takes four of your tacos, and disappears again.

"Driving lessons, huh," Dirk says, mouth curled down.

"Swear on the good book, bro," you say, hand raised in mock salute. "You should see me park."

He snorts, and Davesprite lets out another wail as he bites into the nacho burrito.

_If it was me. I'd want to know._

Okay.

 

It takes a week for you to tell him. You spend the entire time agonizing, trying to find a way to word it so you don't sound like a freak. You fail, brutally. It is impossible for you to tell Dirk that you keep thinking about decapitating him without sounding like you've lost it.

And you do tell him, practically shouting down at him from across the bedroom where he sits on the floor.

He stares at you for a long moment, what can only be stunned silence. You fucked up. You shouldn't have said anything, it was such a stupid idea.

And then his vision slides right off you, like meat off bone, like his head off his shoulders. His gaze focuses on the window, which is now securely duct taped over where the hole had been before. "Did you..." His breath hitches in his th roat, and when he speaks next, his voice is low, thoughtful. "Did you want to do it again..?"

And you just,

You just literally do not know how to deal with that.

So you puke on the carpet.

It's not like you were expecting to puke, or had any sort of ammunition ready, but it all comes up at once, unbidden, and you retch, and retch again.

Dirk, for his part, just watches you, and that fire burns inside you, pent up frustration to the point of tears.

You laugh weakly. "See this? This is what I'm talking about. This is what I tried to tell Rose. I told her you either wouldn't get it and would think I'm a freak with a fetish and that I fantasize about killing you because I have dormant feelings about Bro's death that I haven't worked through yet. Or," you rasp, throat clogged, "you'd act like _this_." You wave a hand at just. All of him.

He shifts a little, puts down the robot arm and mini torch he was cradling. "Dave -"

"And why  _do_ you act like this? Like your life doesn't matter? Like it's all just some silly fucking game?"

The look he gives you is not entirely unfriendly, but it is colder than you are used to, amused like you're a little kid, playing around. "It isn't the first time I've gotten my head cut off to achieve the means to an end, Dave. I admit it wasn't the perfect solution, but it's not like we had many choices. The chance of an opening like that again was slim to none."

You can't help it. You laugh again. Rake your hands back through your hair. "See this? This is  _literally_ what I'm saying to you. You don't care about yourself, Dirk." You wave an arm before you, at the general. General Dirkness, that he is. Hunched over in the corner, turning gears again. "You're really fucked up, dude. You don't think maybe I care? You don't think maybe I was negatively fucking affected by killing my own _brother_?"

His neck shredding against your blade, his head in your arms, his mouth lax, his eyes rolled up --

You puke again and you let your legs buckle, let yourself fall, boneless, knee landing in a puddle of sick.

"Dave," he says, and this time it's gentle, laced with pity. He gets up, footsteps soft as anything, and comes to squat beside you, rubs your back soothingly. "I'm not going to need you to cut off my head again. Probably."

"You're a freak," you accuse.

"Yeah," he says, and tips up your head so he can smile at you, wipe the sick away from your mouth with a glove. "But you like me anyway."

You sit before him, kneeling in vomit, tired and desperate and begging for answers. "You don't think I'm weird, right?"

"For sorta wanting to cut off my head?" And he sees right through you, because of course he does. He doesn't even give the thought pause. "Nah."

"How am I supposed to know if it was right or not?" you ask. "Killing you to defeat Jack. Or English. Or whatever his name was. How do I know there wasn't another way?"

He thinks about it for a minute, taps a line of code against your face. "Because if it wasn't the right thing to do, I wouldn't have died."

You can't help the way you frown, how your eyebrows bunch up. Your chest clenches tight, your stomach rolls. "But that's not. That's not good justification."

"Well," he says instead, sounds thoughtful. His eyes look over the top of your head, flick from the posters on the wall to the window again. "Because we're not in a doomed timeline, Dave. We're here, aren't we? I'm here."

"What if this IS the doomed timeline?" you whisper, and it's all the fears you were too afraid to say, an entire existential crises in one sentence.

He sighs out his nose, drops down to sit next to you on the floor. "Okay." He shifts so that he's just out of your puke puddle. "I will pretend to play your game because I love you, but --"

Your head jerks up, mouth open. You probably look like a fucking clown. You definitely feel like one. "You love me?" You did not just shout that.

He blinks. Okay, maybe you did. "Um. Yeah...?"

"Haha. Oh man I." You turn red from your chest up to the roots of your hair. "No one's ever uh. I mean. Y'know. At least not while sober, anyway."

Dirk, if anything, seems to pale at this. "Oh," he chokes. "Alright."

Shit, better nip that in the bud right fucking now. "No, see, you're doing it again." You grab his hand, the one not covered in vomit. "It's okay. It's fine. Keep talking. You will pretend to play my doomed timeline game. Have you ever been in a doomed timeline?"

His smile is wry. "The entirety of my childhood was, on a technicality, a doomed timeline."

"Okay so far you are passing the basic requirements I set for this." You pull off his glove, turn his palm over.

He watches you play with his hand, running your thumb over the calluses, counting scars. It reminds you a lot of Bro. He doesn't stop you, so you keep doing it. You've never been good at sitting still. "Alright, so we live in a doomed timeline," he says. "What's the worst that can happen now? We won't be gods?"

"I don't know if I'm responsible enough to be a god," you shrug. He has a callus at the base of his thumb that you don't have, probably from the way he holds his tools. Haha gross. Okay, don't laugh. Don't tell him you were -- Well, just don't make that joke. "I kinda just like being Dave the guy."

"So the doomed timeline where we aren't gods is your perfect fantasy," he says, and you can hear his smile.

"Well it'd obviously be worse," you say, curl his fingers in. "In a doomed timeline, everyone dies." You press on his fingers, pop the joints one by one. "You'd catch on fire or explode." Pop. "Or roll off the roof." Crack. "Or I'd trip and fall and cut your head off." Pop.

"The likelihood of that last one seems a bit slim," he murmurs, eyes focused on your hands. Dirk is quiet a lot, when he's lost in thought or talking to his friends or listening to you ramble. But most of the time, you feel like he's quiet for you. Like he doesn't want to be a burden in your space, or take up too much room. You rarely see him silent  _because_  of you.

"That's the problem with timelines, bro." You roll his hand around, put it back on his knee. "Uncertainty makes it more likely."

Dirk hums, eyes still fixed on where your hand was linked to his. You wonder if he's lonely, if he misses his friends as much as you do. "I don't think this is a doomed timeline," he says, sudden enough to make you start. He smiles at you, thin and genuine. His lashes are pale like yours, and there are freckles that trace the line under his eyes.

Part of your brain remembers the way they rolled up in his head, shiny and orange like they didn't know he was dead yet. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," he says. He grabs your hand, turns it up. There's a scar at the curve of your thumb knuckle from when you broke a cup as a kid. "Not everything is perfect, and a lot of it sucks. It's not really what I was expecting when we were promised a new world. But I'm willing to. To figure it out with you." He presses the center of your palmaris tendon and your pinky and ring finger curl involuntarily. "And I'll try not to suggest you ever cut off my head again. But if you want to, I won't tell you no."

You let out a helpless giggle. "This is super fucked up."

"I know," he says, gives a breathy laugh. "I'm sorry."

"Thank you," you tell him, and you mean it.

You don't think you actually solved anything, and you definitely think you're going to wake up in a cold sweat later now that you know you're not the  _only_ person who thinks about you cutting off his head.

But still, for some reason, you feel a little better.

(And you think you love him, too.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do i think dave is mature enough to properly process his emotional trauma? nah. but neither is anyone else, really.  
> also, thank you for all and every comment!!!!!!! i want to reply to all of y'all, but i'm quite shy and anyway, i just really appreciate them!! thank you!!! it's thanks to all of you that i keep writing!


	7. enter: the estranged family unit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You wake up to someone's fingers carding through your hair, and wonder, again, what the fuck is going on with your life.
> 
> Dave (twice over) meets someone special in his life, twice over. That character list just keeps growing, huh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is shorter! sorry, but not that sorry, since I didn't have to format any pesterlogs this time! Wooo!

It is May 22nd. You have existed here for one month, 9 days, and 12 hours, and your life is batshit insane.

You guess it could be worse. You've had your ups and downs, anyway.

Dave's been more sociable with you, like he finally noticed that maybe you were feeling a little isolated, out here on your futon island. It's been kinda strained since your talk the other day, when you brought up what Jade said. She's still a sore subject between the two of you, and it's a rift you don't know how to fix.

But he's trying, at least. He and Dirk have been playing Mad Snacks Yo with you a lot, even if Bro is on his computer or loitering in the kitchen. So you know he's serious about putting in the effort.

Dirk's great, even in all the ways he isn't, but you don't really mind. It's kind of funny, seeing a version of your brother with actual human flaws and emotions. Watching him slowly go through the entire Taco Bell menu is a trip; at this rate maybe he'll start growing some food preferences, after all. You feel a bit more welcome to chill, anyway.

But like anything in your life, there's a creeping feeling that's sinking low into your gut, that shit's about to go very, very sideways.

Y'see, Bro's been sleeping a lot more lately.

Since introducing Taco Bell back into your life last week, he's been fairly accommodating about the sudden increase in demand. He doesn't really complain about the gas, or that he's too busy to bother. Hell, most of the time he lets Dave tag along. If Dave is telling the truth, (and since you know yourself, you know he is) he's even been getting a couple weird, kind of fucked up driving lessons while they're at it (and Dirk wants to go, so very badly, and you can see the war on his face when the door closes, when he pauses for a moment too long before turning back to you with a look of defeat).

But it's like all the new activity is taking a lot out of him. He sleeps long past when you usually wake up, and you've caught him napping in the shower about three times since Saturday.

The extra sleep makes him cranky, makes him a little unsteady, and it feels like your first week back all over again. You don't know what it means. You just know it makes you nervous.

 

So it's May 22nd, 2012, and you wake up to someone’s fingers carding through your hair, hushed voices speaking above you. Your eyes snap open and the first person you see is Bro, already dressed, sitting on the coffee table, arms folded across his chest, mouth curled in displeasure. You shift a half fraction and his eyes move to you immediately. “Hey.”

You grunt, and a soft laugh echoes behind your head. Craning your neck back, you come face to face with Mom Lalonde. “Oh.”

She notices you and breaks into a sunny smile. “Hi, sweetheart!”

You look back at Bro, but he's giving you nothing, and then suddenly he's just not there anymore. That’s. So abnormally normal that it’s almost concerning. You kinda wish you could just flash step away right now. Lucky bastard.

Dave is there, hovering awkwardly. The look on his face makes it obvious that this was not at all his idea, and you two share a moment of panic from where he stands, pressing himself into the door frame like he wants to disappear.

You clearly aren’t getting help, so you push yourself up and look between Mom and now Rose, who you spot standing in the kitchen. Clear your throat. What the fuck. "Uhh. Hey. What’s up?”

What. The. Fuck.

"Good morning," Mom says, and she's all shining teeth and big pink eyes, pink cheeks, and staggeringly sweet perfume. It's a lot to take in. "It's so good to finally meet you! I've heard so much about you from Rose, and I know we've never met, but I've always wanted another kid, a boy and a girl you know? Although theoretically I have two of each now, though I'm unsure if an ectoplasmic clone from an alternate timeline really counts, however -"

"Mother, please don't crowd him," Rose says, and there is a look in her eye that means you are in twenty kinds of fucking trouble.

"Oh, Rosie, I wouldn't," she says, standing up and stepping away politely. "It's just the first time we've met, after all, and I've been so looking forward to meeting you. Both of you, I suppose."

"Mom," Rose tries again, and Mom bites her lip.

"I'll go find your dad, okay?" she murmurs, gives you a little pat on the back.

"Okay," you say, dumbfounded, and you and Dave watch her go with equally startled expressions.

Rose doesn't really breathe until after she leaves, shoulders slumping down, blowing her bangs out of her face.

"Don't you get tired of that?" Dave asks, wandering in and plopping down next to you, so that your shoulders are squished together. You jostle him, perturbed, but if anything, he just presses closer.

"She's trying," Rose says, weakly. "We discussed boundaries before we left, she just... Gets carried away, that's all." She crosses the room and wraps both of you in her arms without asking. You feel stilted, awkward, and pat at her back hesitantly. You haven't spoken in literal years. "I didn't know if you'd come back," she says as she pulls away, gives you a thin-lipped smile, squeezes your shoulders. "It would have been nice to hear from you."

Ouch. Yeah. You've been so focused on. Well. Other things. Yourself, you guess. Bro, maybe. You just kind of... forgot. Sort of. "I didn't think you'd care," you admit, and the way her face falls, eyebrows bunching up, mouth pursed, makes your insides writhe with guilt.

"You're my brother, Dave. We were friends for years."

Yeah. Were. You just hunch a little, shrug. "Yeah. Sorry. I'm sorry, Rose." And you are, of course you are. But it's hard, being the Other Dave, even if no one else seems to think so. Even if no one but John remembers you were friends for the past three years.

The look she gives you is a familiar brand of sadness, and she sighs, pats your cheek a little harshly. "It's done with, now. But next time, you better pester me first."

You give a half-hearted smile, shove at her hands. "Okay, okay, Jesus. What are you even doing here?"

She hesitates at that. "Well. It's a bit more complicated than I'd like."

"Mom didn't tell you, huh?" Dave says, and you think he's pretending not to be anxious, is probably hiding behind you, right now. Bastard.

Rose gives him a withering look and sits down hard on the mattress. "We're just not entirely sure what happened. Last week she got a phone call while we were out to brunch - don't roll your eyes - and she practically ran out of the diner. It was mortifying." She shrugs. "Next thing, she buys plane tickets and tells us we're going to 'visit your dad's for a little while' and now..." She spreads her fingers. "Here we are."

Huh. Weird.

"Huh," Dave says. "Weird."

"I assumed your brother called her," Rose says softly.

You make a face. "Fucking unlikely. I've never seen the dude call anyone for a reason that didn't involve food in my entire life."

"The principal called him that one time in first grade," Dave says. "When we drew him holding a sword for a project."

"Shit, yeah," you laugh. "They wanted to know why the fuck a kid even knew what a sword was. Oh my God, Bro had to be in his twenties, right? How did they take him seriously, Jesus."

"The two of you do not make the idea of meeting him properly at all inspiring," Rose monotones, mouth turned down at the corners. Ha, she looks like Dirk when she does that.

And oh, fuck.

"Hey, where's Dirk?"

Rose presses her lips together until they become a thin line. It's the kind of silence that you remember from pesterlogs, and not something you know how to parse in person.

Dave has no such dilemmas. He shrugs, nudges at you lightly in warning. "Mid-reunion with Roxy right now, probably. They apparently have a lot to talk about. Kicked me outta my room first thing in the goddamn morning." You glance over. He sure is still wearing his godtier gear.

Rose's eyes drop to the floor. "She really wanted to meet her, ah, version of me. She and Mom get along okay, she's been a great help with - with everything, these past few weeks. It's just that I..." Her eyebrows furrow. "I feel guilty, I suppose. And I know it's not my fault, of course we couldn't control the outcome of The Game, but. For them - for Roxy, and Dirk, and Jake, and maybe even Jane - oh it must be such a disappointment."

You hadn't really thought about it that much. I mean. You've been thinking about Dirk's Bro non-stop since Jade brought it up, wondering how the fuck that'll effect your dynamic, how Bro will take it. So maybe you have been thinking about it a little too much. Just. Not about how it'll effect everyone else.

You take Rose's hand in yours, level her with the kindest stare your shades can manage. "We'll deal with it together. It's not your fault."

She hugs you again and you let her, cross your hands over each other between her shoulder blades. Your eyes sting. Fuck, when's the last time someone hugged you?

"Wow, this is such an intimate emotional moment," Dave drawls. "It'd be such a shame if someone got jealous and inserted themselves without invitation."

You do not laugh when he throws his arms over both you, but you cannot stop a snort when he presses his lips to your head so hard he may as well be trying to maul you, pulling away with a loud smacking sound.

Rose gets a similar treatment, though she handles it with more grace, and you get a flash of bright white teeth as she releases you.

"Wow, these are some straight up serious fucking kid cuddles happenin' out here, and we're missing it all!" It's almost uncanny, how much she sounds like Momlonde, and you wish you could stop yourself from staring when you see her. It's just. You've never met Roxy before.

"Hi, mom," Dave says, like he can't stop himself, and then covers his face in such a display of embarrassment you, yourself, are mortified.

"However you're feeling, right now," Dirk says, shades on shades with you, "I am currently feeling that at approximately 200% the intensity. This is it, this is the nightmare goddamn scenario."

"Oh, I wouldn't say we've reached the absolute apex of humiliation until someone's called you Daddy," Rose says, smile bright and shark-like.

Dirk takes that about as well as you can imagine, face morphing in horror and disgust.

"Rose, don't tease Dirk! We just got all reunited-like, save it for after the family photo, at least." Roxy is beautiful, in all the ways Mom Lalonde is, with her big pink eyes and cheeks and a grin from ear to ear. "Hi, Dave. Again. And also, Dave! Rose told me about some of the wacky shit you were up to, sounded hells of fucked up."

You manage a wavering smile. "It wasn't all bad. And I'm me, again, anyway."

"You  _are_ you again, anyways." She nods, like it all makes sense, and you feel stilted, awkward, unable to talk to. Well. A normal person. Or at least as normal as it gets for you. "I don't really mind that Dave calls me mom, tbh. Like, if you also ended up doing that thing he does with the insane slippage of Freudian foot-to-mouth syndrome, Ro-Lal ain't blinkin' for a sec over here." She beams, and she's all soft face and rounded edges.

But of course, like all of you, she's batshit fucking insane, and it's something you don't realize until the precise moment she dive-bombs the three of you seated on the futon. "Say cheese, motherfuckers!" is about as much warning you get before Roxy has her phone up, camera out, snapping selfies like there's no tomorrow.

"This is stupid," you say, squinting as your shades are dislodged, and you attempt to find the camera in the sudden too bright light.

"Not nearly as stupid as it could be," is what Dirk says next to your head, and you don't even remember him sitting down, or moving at all. You don't flinch, and feel proud for it. He moves, lightning quick, and you cannot stop a laugh for the sudden realization that he's switched your shades with his.  
It is, without a doubt, the weirdest day you've had so far. But you're smiling, easily more than you have in the past month.

 

Mom drives you and Bro to the hospital. Dirk offers to help at least carry you, but Mom Lalonde quite literally says “LOL” out loud and hefts you over her shoulder with one arm. Dave looks like he’s about to cry laughing, and you flip him off behind her back as she carries you out the door. You are never going to live this down.

You squish into the cab of the truck and feel a wave of nostalgia, childhood delight and an overwhelming calm.

Right up until they make you straddle the hump, the horrible little seat between Bro and Mom, though Bro doesn't protest when you shove yourself into his space, too afraid you'll be in the way of her driving if you put your legs on either side.

It's weird, seeing your brother as a passenger. You get a sense that he is aggravated, watching Mom adjust his mirrors all wrong, muttering to herself the entire time. Heh. Guess you know where you got that.

"Ready?" she says, when she's completely fucked everything up. You haven't seen those mirrors move in your entire life.

Bro sighs through his nose, puts his elbow on the window sill, and leans out as far from both of you as he can get.

Well. Guess he's just going to be like that, then.

Mom chats the whole way, asks you about your hobbies, calls Bro "Dirk", wants to know how your school is going.

You look over at Bro for that one. "Uhhh. I forgot."

Mom gets this wrinkle in her brow for a second. "What do you mean 'forgot'? Dirk! Have you not been helping them finish the rest of the homeschool year?"

"Forgot," Bro parrots, doesn't bother turning to look at either of you.

"Well," she huffs, squeezes the wheel. "I'll take a look, see if we can't get in there and get some of the lessons out of the way."

It's weird, it's very very weird, squished between the two adults who are, you guess, on some level your real actual parents, talking about going back to school, helping with homework like you didn't survive three years in a reality-bending video game. It feels normal. Laughably so, and it makes you feel that much more uneasy.

 

The first thing they do is get you a wheelchair. They ask why your legs don’t work, why you’ve got scrapes on your hands, why you didn't come in earlier.

You slipped during track, you tell them sarcastically. Look, man, taking a piss by yourself when your legs don't work is hard. Get off your back.

Mom plays the part of the worried parent, says it’s such a shock, she was devastated when you woke up one day and couldn’t walk, and she keeps talking and talking until they wave her away.

They can’t really explain it. Simple muscle degeneration from lack of use, they say.

Lack of existence, you mutter to Mom, and she squeezes your shoulders and gives you a bitter smile.

The second thing they do is test Bro for epilepsy, after you betray his trust and tell them about his seizures. The look he gives you would kill a lesser man.

They talk to him in another examination room for about twenty minutes before they let you in, and when they order blood tests, you see, for just a moment, the fear in Bro's eyes. He's not afraid of blood, never has been, but then, you've never met someone who enjoyed getting jabbed in the arm by a nervous med student.

Mom didn't seem shocked to hear about his seizures, sits in the chair next to his bed with her legs crossed. "Why didn't you go to a doctor sooner?" she hisses, after they've left. "Dirk, this is really fu-" She glances at you. "Fu-rickin' serious!"

"Didn't want to bother," he mutters, rubs at his eyes. "Doctors are a bunch of fuckin' quacks, they don't know what they're talking about."

"Uh, pretty sure it's their job to know what they're talking about," you say, wryly, and he grunts.

"Don't like doctors."

"Yeah," you scoff, "that's pretty fucking apparent in how long it took you to get me a goddamn wheelchair." For emphasis, you roll it back and forth.

"Language, both of you," Mom says.

Bro just rolls his eyes and then rolls away.

You sit in the hall with your mom while they do the big tests, scans and x-rays, shit you don't know what it is.

And holy fuck she  _is_ your mom, isn't she? Like, really. Wow.

"He'll be okay," she says, and sounds confident. "Dirk has always been a pretty tough guy. And not just in the pretend sense." She gives you an honest to god wink-and-a-nudge.

You have never heard anyone refer to Bro as anything but, and it feels weird. You just shrug, because your arms are already tired, and because you're more worried than you're willing to admit.

It's weird, though. All of this. Mom being here, waiting in a hospital for Bro. You haven't been to a hospital since you were a kid, the one and only time you tried to climb a tree like you'd seen on TV. Didn't pan out properly.

"Are you and Bro friends?" you ask her, because if anyone has dirt, it's gotta be someone who calls him by the Forbidden Name.

That seems to spook her a little, eyebrows up, eyes wide. She looks like you, a little. Dave, a lot. Her eyes drop to the floor, just like Rose. "We were," she says around a sigh. "When we were younger. Really good friends! Pretty much the only friend I had, honestly. Got me through my babysitting job plenty of times, even when I wasn't completely coherent." She laughs, soft, a little sad. "I don't think he was too proud of me, then. But he never abandoned me. Not until..." She trails off, eyes flicking to you and then away. "It doesn't matter. I had a lot on my plate, after Rose. I guess he must have, too."

You want to tell her about Cal. You don't know how much she knows already. You should tell her.

 _Tell her_.

_Tell her, come on, Dave, she should know._

You don't tell her.

"Cool," you say instead. "I didn't know he had any friends. It's reassuring, knowing he wasn't just out there alone all those years."

She gives you a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes, and you feel like a fuck up.

All the tests they get results for today come back negative, and Bro looks annoyed and strung out by the end of it.

He seems confused, they say. He might have brain damage, they say. Did he have any accidents, they want to know.

 _He died_ , you think, but instead you shrug. Mom died too, and she’s fit as a fiddle. Ugh, yuck, put that one back in the box.

He gets a CT scan, but they can’t see anything on his brain, nothing to suggest trauma.

They ask (pressure) you about Bro’s past drug use, and you shrug again. He was a DJ when you were a baby, you don’t really know much about drugs. He’s probably taken uppers, how are you supposed to know what that means. Is that what DJs do? You've smelled weed on him, yeah, whose older brother doesn't smoke weed. He’s jumpy sometimes, but he’s always been like that. He’s not an addict. Probably.

You don’t mention the demon puppet thing, but maybe ripping him away so suddenly has fucked up your brother irreparably. Maybe there was something deeper there that you don't - can't - understand.

When they let him back in the room with you, he looks spent, and won’t speak to either of you.

They give him some anxiety meds and pain killers and tell you to keep an eye on him.

(Mom drives home again, with you in the passenger seat and Bro laying down in the back, arm over his eyes, shaking in fury.)

It feels a little like defeat, with no leads on Bro, and no questions answered regarding your legs, but it feels kinda good when you roll into the apartment all on your own. Your arms ache already, and you're so tired. But Dirk gives you a thumbs up and Dave actually pulls up his shades and gives a low whistle.

“Lookin’ good, birdbrain.”

“I’ll run over your toes,” you tell him, but you’re beaming.

Mom brings Bro in and the room is quiet as she gets him settled on the futon, fluffing his pillow and taking off his hat for him.

He only moves when she steps away, grabs her wrist, lightning fast. Dirk and Dave flinch, but you freeze, dumbfounded, curious.

“Yes, Dirk?” is all she says, and you think she sounds tired.

He just holds her there for a long, long moment. Dave looks pensive, a little nervous, but Rose looks like she’s about to burst a blood vessel.

But in the end, Bro just gives a shuddering sigh and whispers, “Thanks.”

And just like that, all the bad air evaporates.

“Oh, you silly man,” Mom sighs, and she smooths his hair back gently. When she kisses him on the forehead, you think Dave might have an aneurysm. You’re kind of just relieved it didn’t turn into a fight.

 

Sleeping conditions get weird, after that. The girls take the bedroom, which is no skin off your back, and the boys are kicked out into the hallway.

Which is all and good, right up until you get kicked off the futon, which not only peels the skin from your back, it proceeds to flaunt it by wearing it to your birthday party. You (sullenly) join Dirk and Dave in the hall. No one is sleeping with your dangerous, potentially epileptic brodad except for Mom.

The hall camp out lasts exactly as long as it takes for the door to the living room to close, and then Roxy and Rose drag you, Dirk, and Dave into the bedroom for a slumber party.

You fill each other in on missed time. Rose and Roxy have held down the fort, helping Mom stay dry, trying to patch shit up one awkward conversation at a time. Mom spends a lot of her time in her lab, like nothing happened, but they've moved all the booze out of the bar, put it in storage. They don't know what to do with it.

No word from the trolls at all, though the constellations are all there in the sky, and Rose and Dave share a look you don’t understand, and honestly don’t care to. Your experience with trolls was limited, and honestly? Fairly bad. You're pretty happy never to meet another troll again. Or be one, either.

"They figured out trans-galactic communication before, maybe they'll do it again," Dirk offers, with a little shrug. "Hell, if you want, Roxy 'n I could poke at it, see if we can't figure something out?"

Roxy nods vigorously. "Yeah, yeah! You just leave the smartypants science junk to us smartypants nerds, okay? We'll get ur trolls back in no time at all. Scout's honor."

"While I appreciate the thought," Rose says, pauses. "I hardly think it appropriate for something that benefits only Dave and I to become the main focus of your attention, especially given the current circumstances here."

Dave huffs. "Rose, we're fine, I keep tellin' you. Shit's going down smooth as buttermilk in this here house. Everything on lockdown."

"Yes," she says, and it's snarky passive-aggression, "you're right, Dave. We  _didn't_  just find out that your brother is having seizures, which you somehow failed to mention previously. And I definitely didn't find out until we got here that Dave's legs aren't working, either!"

"I don't really feel like that should be a surprise," you protest weakly. "John said Nanna Egbert is wheelbound too, it's not like it's a secret that being a sprite had some setbacks."

"Oh, and how could I forget." Rose rolls her eyes, and your stomach twists in knots. You're angry, you're embarrassed. You want this, whatever it is, to stop. "Nobody thought to even take you to a hospital! You could have been seriously injured this entire time, and he didn't even consider -"

Roxy puts a hand on her arm, shooshes her gently. "'S gonna be okay now, Rose. We're here, and we're gonna help fix whatever needs fixin'!"

"I don't need fixing," you say, agonized, but before she can reply, there's a heavy thud from the living room, followed by a loud curse and another thud.

Rose and Dave are up in a heartbeat, out of the room before you can blink.

Dirk and Roxy don't move at all, and Dirk, lounging next to you, leans over, drags you down into the blanket pile. "Roxy's only saying all that because she already yelled at me," he says softly.

"Okay," you say, just the tiniest bit miserable.

"I heard that, mister," Roxy says from the bed. She wiggles her hand at you until you take it, squeezes it once before letting go. "I'm sorry, Dave. I didn't mean to make it sound like you was broken or nothing."

"Davesprite," you say, and bite back a wince. "If it's easier for you, to differentiate between us. You can call me Davesprite."

She thinks about that for a minute, chin in her hands, mouth set in a frown. "Nah," she says, and she gives you a flash of sparkling white teeth. "I don't think I like that much at all."

You pinch your lips together, get ready to complain. You're not the real Dave, you're not even A Dave, really, not much anymore, but Dave and Rose are back.

Rose looks like she swallowed a lemon whole, and Dave is red from the neck up.

"What happened to you, Jesus Christ. Is Bro okay?" Did he have another seizure, you mean.

"They were," Rose starts, hesitates.

"Wrestling," Dave manages, voice high and strangled.

Roxy is starting turn pink at the ears, and rolling your head back, Dirk looks like he might pass out. "You mean, like --"

"Literal wrestling," Rose says, hand over her mouth, and suddenly she's laughing, snickers coming from between her fingers. "They were fighting over a blanket. Literally."

"Dave," Dirk chokes, "I changed my mind. About what I said before."

And that, for whatever reason, just makes Dave fucking lose it.

Your life is, literally, batshit insane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (special shoutout to peonies, for me taking time out of their day to talk to me about the big mess that is the strider family <3)


	8. interlude: actinide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> enter: everyone's least favorite character. part 1/2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to dickhead town, population, Bro. I thought I'd give y'all a two for one special, and hope that you like being sad!

Your name is Bro Strider, and you are not a beloved storybook character. You're a dude who lived, a dude who died, and you're getting real fucking tired of people asking if you're okay.

The short answer is no.

The long answer is that you're not entirely sure what or how you feel. Angry, some days. Empty, others. Like a piece of you was carved out, like you lost something but you don't know what it is.

(An insane clown puppet, apparently.)

(Some days, you still miss him.)

 

It's a hot night. Really fucking hot. Houston is like that, Texas in general, but especially jammed up against the coast, heat that could scour the meat off your bones and air thick enough to spoon into your bowl like soup.

You lay on your futon, sweat stuck to the back of your neck, and you cannot sleep. You've been trying for approximately two hours, and you are having absolutely zero fucking luck.

It isn't always like this. You've been getting more than enough sleep, lately. An excess amount in the exact measurement of a metric shit ton, in fact.

But right now, lying with your arm curled under your head (Rox took your pillow), blanket pooled by your feet (you won that fight, if only by pity, and it's too hot, besides), you cannot fucking sleep.

And you should be able to, by all accounts. You've got "medication" now, not that that means anything, and your thoughts don't race, your brain doesn't scramble the information like a bad radio signal until everything's so jumbled up you can't think straight. You just. Can't sleep. You can hear the mumble of words through the wall, hear the hum of your broken fridge, the thrum of your heart in your ears, like the tick of a clock. Your foot shakes, your fingers flex, and you feel like dying again would be easier.

You become aware, very shortly, that Roxy is watching you. You can feel her eyes on your back, and it's a talent as much as a curse, the way it sends your skin crawling, this sensation you cannot stop, have never been able to shake.

"Dirk," she whispers. Jesus Christ. "Are you awake?" She knows you are. Lady's crazy smart, or was, last time you saw her. Maybe the alcohol fried some of her brain cells. Not that you have room to talk. Not to mention the fact that your jittering is probably keeping her up. You should just lay on the floor. Do push ups. Something.

"Yeah," you say. Leave me alone, you don't.

"Are you really okay with this?" she says, and you sigh out your nose, roll over. This again. She stares at you, in her pink silk cat pajamas, hair in perfect pin curls, and you soften, ever so slightly.

"S'fine. Nowhere else for you to sleep. Could still take the floor, if you wanted me to." You'd almost prefer it, at this point. You could probably get some work done down there, at least.

She makes a face in the dim light, punches up the pillow she stole from you. You don't care. You don't really need a pillow anyway. "You've been having seizures, Dirk. You're not sleeping on any kinda floor, not on my watch."

"If someone's gotta stop me from choking on vomit," you say, not too unkindly.

She reaches out and boops your nose. "Exactly."

You hum short agreement and goddamn, you're so fucking tired. Close your eyes, ignore how they burn under the lids.

You hear the click of her tongue on the top of her mouth as she opens it to speak. Here we fucking go. "You really should consider getting a proper bed."

You grunt. "A bed in the middle of the living room wouldn't exactly be efficient, Rox."

"Then move," she pushes.

"I don't -" you start, too mean, and you bite back on it, try to reign in your hair trigger aggression. Jesus, you're trying so fucking hard. "I like it here," you say instead.

"You're only saying that because you've never lived anywhere else," she tells you, and you hate that she's mostly right.

The problem is, you're stubborn, and you resent her for it, so you argue. "I used to have a bedroom, Rox, and then I adopted a meteor baby. And now it's his bedroom. It's my fucking penthouse suite, I'll do what I want with it."

"It's a shit hole," she says, amused.

"Not all of us can inherit a laboratory in the middle of the woods," you sneer.

"I didn't want --" She pinches her lips together, eyebrows bunching up. She looks so much like Dave. "I had to, Dirk. You know that."

"Yeah," you sigh, give a shaky breath. You know a lot of things. You know too many things, or maybe you don't know enough. Maybe the things you thought you knew were all wrong. "I know."

"They made it, though," she whispers, and her eyes glow with pride. She pauses, thinks about that. "Well, maybe they had a little bit of help."

"I'd say a helluva lot of help," you snort, happy to change the subject. "Otherwise, there wouldn't be a bunch of doubles runnin' around like our lives're a Saturday morning cartoon."

"Yeah," she says, thoughtful. "I'm still not sure how exactly that worked. Or even started? They call it --"

"The scratch," you say, remember heat that burned through your shoes, stung at your eyes, sweat pooling at the base of your neck, screeching metal, whispers in the dark, a sinister jester with jet black wings. You slam your eyes closed again.

"Dirk?"

Laughter, echoing across the back of your skull, _be better, do better, push harder_. Heat and misery. Green fire and barking dogs.

"Dirk!"

She touches your face and you grab her hand, hold it away from you as you breathe.

"I'm okay," you say, slowly, like that means anything. "I'm just." You're just tired. You feel like part of your soul has been scraped out through your eyeballs. You rub at them with the back of your hand. "I'm just tired."

"It's hard, being back," she whispers, and you think she sounds sad. "It's okay if you can't do it alone, Dirk."

"I can handle it," you say, even though you don't really want to. You won't show weakness. You can't. You don't know how.

"You very clearly can't," she says, and it's snarky, a little mean. "Dirk, you can't even handle yourself, how are you planning on taking care of three kids? Isn't that why I'm here?" The sweetness of her tone fades away into something harsh and throaty, the kind of Roxy who could kill a man to protect her young. That's fair, you can handle it.

What you say is, "You can't even handle your own alcohol dependency," and watch her deflate like a balloon.

You didn't mean that. Yes you did. You're kind of sorry. The world you grew up in carved you into an cruel, unkind person. The idea of apologizing makes your stomach curdle.

"You're right," she admits instead. Flicks you on the nose.

"As per fucking usual," you drawl. You wonder if the shame you feel leaks through the cracks. You think you're almost okay with that.

"I don't want to fight," she says, hand curling back in towards herself. Her mouth is a thin line, so naked without the signature black of her lipstick. It's almost foreign to you now.

"I know," you say. Struggle to finish.

Say sorry.

_Say you're fucking sorry._

You're sorry.

"I need a drink." You are careful not to move too quickly, don't know if you're up for it, anyway. Maybe dealing with Dave has trained you this way, and you roll off the couch, back up to your feet in a beat.

"Fix me one," she says with a shitty smile, flopping her hand after you.

"No," you say, and she grins. You know fucking better than to keep alcohol in the house with Roxy here, but you grab two lukewarm sodas from the fridge and toss one at her, hide a smile when she fumbles to catch it, curses loudly.

She squints at it and you think maybe you should turn on a light, think about your poor fucking head, and decide against it.

"One of D-Stri's premium beloved orange sodas?" she gasps, all delight and false sincerity. "I'm honored!"

"Treasure it," you say, dropping down on the arm of your bed. "I ain't givin' you another if you drop that one."

"I wouldn't dream of it," she says, but she's beaming. You missed this. How easy it is, to be with her. To be yourself. Whoever the fuck that is, anymore. What do you know?

"I don't think I can do this by myself," she admits, and it's soft, softer than anything. "Rose is trying so hard for me, Dirk. She's just a kid, she shouldn't have to put up with. With my." Her lip quivers, and you reach over, crack her cola open for her.

"Drink," you say, gentle as you can. You hold your hand against hers.

"That's the problem," she sighs, but does what you tell her.

"I can't help you, Rox," you say, and it's true, and it hurts, just a little. "I don't know if I'll ever be ready for any of this, I never have been. But look at you. Look at how far you've come. You're here now, huh?"

"But I failed," she says, lip wobbling dangerously. "I died."

And damn, if that doesn't just fucking gut you. Roxy is the strongest gal you've ever met, has pretty much been your only friend for forever. She has no reason to be getting down on herself when your dumb ass is sitting right here.

"Hey," you say, and you take her hand with your own, the way you've seen a thousand times, like they do in movies, like you've seen Dave reach for Mini-You. "You're not the only one who died, okay? I bit it too, real fucking hard." And you're never going to be able to look at dogs the same way, not ever again. Ugh. Thank fuck Dave never asked for a pet. Kid was always more interested in dead things. Kind of fucked up, but you guess it worked out.

"You really suck at this," she sniffles.

"Yeah," you say around a sigh, carefully don't lean away as she puts her head on your shoulder. Your skin crawls at the contact. "Yeah, I know."

"I want to trust you again," she says, and you feel yourself freeze, feel your fingers turn to stone, your body go numb as dread floods through you like so much ice in the veins.

"You don't have to," you say, and it's mechanical to your ears, a fact, and nothing more. "I don't deserve it."

"I know," she says, pushes against you. "But I want to try. I want you to feel like you deserve it."

It's.

It's too much. The trust, this kindness, the emotional connection and how open you feel with her, how safe. It's like there's a piece of you that just shrivels up and dies to hear that, to know she's giving you so much when you deserve so little. You aren't worthy of second chances, not yet. Your cruelty is a part of you, settled around your shoulders like the weight of a King's heavy velvet cape. It defines you. It controls you.

And you realize, stiff as a mannequin on a bed you've had for thirteen years, that you are  _not_ in control.

It's too much.

So you flash away, halfway across the room, stumbling as you go, scrambling for your shoes. You feel panicked, heart picking up, thudding in your ears. It's like adrenaline, a fight-or-flight when there's nothing to face, no monster to defeat except the shadow of yourself.

"Where are you going," she asks, pure aggravation, soda slopped across her PJs, mouth open and eyebrows knit in disappointment.

_It's too much._

"Roof," you say, and don't look back.


	9. interlude: actinide (cyclic)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> part 2/2  
> welcome back, Dirk!

GG: It hasn't been that terrible, really. It's kind of odd, getting used to sharing a room with myself!  
GG: Or at least, as much as she is me, I suppose.  
GG: You and Roxy know all about that now, I'm sure.  
GG: Dad and Mr. Egbert are talking about a house expansion this summer, but they have to get a permit from the HOA, and I don't actually remember the last time I even visited the Dad Depot!  
TT: But it is weird, right? Not sleeping in your own room.  
GG: Yes :(  
GG: I'm trying not to be too bothered by it. John sacrificed so much for so long, he deserves to at least sleep in his own bed.  
GG: But I miss the privacy, and the way things were before.  
GG: I know that's selfish, and I should be more grateful, it's just hard sometimes.  
TT: I don't think that's selfish, Jane.  
TT: I'm thankful every goddamn day I wake up and Dave's there beside me. But do I wish he'd stop kicking me in the balls in my sleep? Hell fucking yes.  
TT: Do I think his sheets are kinda lame and totally miss my sweet setup? Read: hell fucking yes.  
TT: You can miss what you don't have without spending every damn second moping about it day in and day out.  
TT: I think it's really fucking awesome that you'd let John have the room, even if it's clearly hard for you, and the fact that you didn't bring it up til now is a testament to that fact.  
GG: Well, shucks, buster! No need to lay on the flattery so hard!  
TT: I'm a hard dude. I hardly know how to do anything else.  
GG: >:B  
GG: I should say, it isn't all bad. I make it sound worse than it is, and I'm at least familiar with Nanna, to a point.  
GG: You might imagine we have some hobbies in common ;B  
TT: Slow your very literal roll right there, Miss Crocker. This conversation is about to transmogrify into a discussion of sweets and cookery I can no longer enjoy given our lack of proximity to each other, and I cannot bear it.  
TT: Neither emotionally, nor physically.  
GG: Dave is still making fun of you for having no preference towards food, huh?  
TT: To borrow your earlier phrase,  
TT: Yes (insert a version of a frown emoji that would be appropriate in this context for me if you can).  
GG: You can tell him you like sweets, Dirk. It's not the end of your masculinity to enjoy a treat once in awhile!  
TT: No I know that.  
TT: It's just. I don't know. I want him to think I'm cool, still. I think.  
TT: I am aware of how silly that sounds.  
GG: Hmm it is a little silly.  
TT: Jane, you're breaking my heart over here.  
GG: It's silly because you ARE cool, Dirk!  
GG: Maybe not in the ways you previously thought, or in a way that you think matters at all. But you're a good friend, and I feel lucky every day to call you one of my own.  
TT: Jane,  
TT: You are a much better friend than I deserve. One might say, the best, even.  
GG: I try to be! <3  
GG: How's progress on your side? Any inklings towards venturing outdoors?  
TT: Well.  
TT: Yes and no.  
TT: I offered to take Dave to the car when he and Rose's Mom went to the hospital, but was denied. I suppose technically that wouldn't have been a real venture, anyhow. The garage is underground, from what I have been told.  
GG: I am certain it is the thought that counts.  
TT: It felt lame.  
GG: Sometimes feelings can be very lame, Dirk :( I should know all about that, and the mess I made during Sburb.  
TT: Hey, but we fixed you right up, didn't we? No more possession, no more evil grandmother.  
GG: I was speaking about the Juju, and our unfortunate rise to godtier.  
TT: I wouldn't say unfortunate, entirely. Saved my bacon, didn't you?  
TT: As for Juju speak. Well. You and I both have messes to clean up, there.  
TT: But perhaps they can wait until we all settle in here, in whatever fucked up version of Earth we've found for ourselves.  
TT: Speaking of, as the official heiress and soon to be CEO of the Crocker Corp, do you have any words for the press?  
GG: Oh, I'm not quite ready for all that, I think.  
GG: I'd like to be a kid a little while longer :B Dad and Nanna are going to help me manage until I turn eighteen.  
TT: God that's great, Jane.  
GG: It isn't official yet, of course. John's version of the Condesce didn't care much for Nanna, either.  
GG: The deed and title currently belongs to one Mr. Jacob Harley.  
TT: Ah.  
GG: Jade's grandpa.  
TT: I see the dilemma.  
GG: :(  
TT: We have to talk to him eventually, Jane.  
GG: I know. But I don't want to :(  
TT: Me neither.  
TT: I mean, I do. We've been friends pretty much our whole lives, or at least your life from your perspective, and my life from mine. It's laughable that we cannot wrap our equally genius noggins around this conundrum.  
TT: roxy thinks ur both dummies!!  
GG: She is correct! We are! Cowardly dummies.  
GG: Hi, Roxy :B  
TT: She says hi.  
TT: And I say, this is my phone, and if she wants to pester you, she can do it with her own. I could be using my shades instead, you know.  
GG: She still owes me all the "sweet pix", do not let her forget, Strider.  
TT: Wouldn't dream of it.  
TT: We should really hook you up with Dave, too, he's a barrel of laughs when you get him going.  
TT: Hook him up with your chum handle.  
TT: I mean.  
TT: Obviously.

"Jeeeezus, Dirk, you're a mess," Roxy laughs, snatching your phone and elbowing you simultaneously so that it flies from your grasp before you can stop her. "Let me handle this."

You ignore her, reaching for it desperately, because Christ, she's right, you are such a huge mess, you have to apologize, you have to make it clear what you meant or you'll die.

"Clam down, Strider," she says, and this time her voice is gentle, and the hand over yours is warm and small. "It's just a joke. She's not mad. You know she thinks the world of you."

"Yeah," you mumble, lean into her. You're still pouting, just a little. "I know."

You could just open pesterchum on your shades, log Roxy out and tell Jane to ignore her, but you don't really mind too much, kind of like the company.

The two of you sit curled up in the corner of the room, trying not to wake up the other three.

"They're cute when they're sleepin', right?" Roxy whispers. "Like, hella cute."

The Daves are sleeping back to back, both curled the opposite way like a fucked up Rorschach. Rose fell asleep stubbornly trying to beat the two of you, and failed. She sits slumped over on Dave's bed, legs criss-crossed, upper body clutching his pillow and drooling all over. Haha. You're kinda glad it's not yours. "Hella cute," you agree.

The front door slams closed hard enough to shake the floor, but the kids don't wake, and you're the only one who flinches so hard you jump to your feet.

Roxy looks up at you in that way she has, where you know she's thinking,  _"Seriously?"_

"I'll just," you choke, flex your hands. Your sword is still broken. You don't know what's waiting for you. "I'm just going to check. For a second."

She gives you the human equivalent of a slashy face, and then shoos you off. "Go, then. I'll tell Janey we're getting ready for bed, anyway."

You are already halfway gone.

It only takes a second. Mom is sitting on the bed, cradling a Crush can and her phone, looking sour as a lemon, and Bro is nowhere to be seen. Well. Okay.

You don't have to do what you're about to do, but you do it anyway, because your self-esteem is low, but your narcissism is off the charts.

You use the kitchen window, ignore her exclamation, and you're hand over foot up the building before anyone can stop you.

And there he is, Bro, squatting on the edge of the roof like a gargoyle, spine like a C curve, staring at the streets below like they hold the answers.

"Bro," you say, voice low, stuck in your throat like phlegm. He doesn't turn. "Dirk," you try, louder.

Like some kind of horror movie, he rises to full height, ever so slowly, like each bit of unfolding is a mechanical process. You could probably design a more efficient android, studying the way this too tall man unfurls.

He glances back at you and lets out a long stream of air, and this time, when you smell smoke, it's definitely a cigarette. "Hey," he says, but his voice falters, and without his shades, you can see his pupils blown wide, can read the crease of his brow and the lines under his eyes.

You realize, absently, that this is your first time seeing panic on your face, from the outside.

"Uh," you say. You hesitate, then, and the space between you feels like a chasm. You are not emotionally equipped to deal with... with whatever this is. You should go back inside.

_Go back inside, Dirk._

_Dirk, you should go back inside._

You cross the roof because you are curious, and because you're not actually tired, and because it's you, on a carnal level, at the base of everything, genetically, this is you.

So you cross the roof and you stand next to him, feet touching the very edge of the verge, and you look at him.

Bro is 6 feet and 5 inches of douchebag, of this you are almost certain, with your eye for structure and the height disparity between you. But standing there, spine bowed and shoulders hunched, he looks smaller, more vulnerable.

"Are you," you start, stop. _Go back inside._ "Are you okay?"

"No," he says. Takes a long drag. "But I am real fuckin' tired of people asking me that question."

"Yeah," you say, feel a little lame. "But they're asking because they care about you."

He seems almost amused by that, tilts his head a fraction of an inch, mouth twisted in a sardonic half-smile. "You don't, though. Care about me."

Well. You weren't expecting that. "Not in the traditional sense, no," you admit, contrite. "But I care about the well-being of Dave, and I know how much you mean to him, and that matters to me."

He hums, flicks ashes off into the night.

"He does care about you, you know," you say, because it's true, and because you think maybe he needs to hear that. "Both of them."

"That's the problem," is what he says instead, and you're a little baffled when he tips his head back, presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. "I really need a fucking drink."

"Surprised you don't have a stash for that, too," you say, because the idea of drinking makes you even more uncomfortable than smoking.

He drops his hands, and the way he looks at you makes you want to crawl into a hole and die. "I did. But I can't keep alcohol in the house with the kids' mom here, Christ, kid."

"Yeah," you murmur, because you're surprised. Surprised that he knows about that, and that he cares enough to prevent it happening. "That's. That's really cool of you, man."

"She's my only friend," he offers, shrugs. Flick go the ashes. "I'm not really looking to live out a fantasy of mutually assured destruction here."

You ponder that. "You think she lets you get away with too much."

He sighs, pinches his nose with his free hand. "She's too forgiving, too eager to look past. Well. Most of the fucked up shit that happened. I'd say she believes in me too much, but that sounds really fucking lame."

But you know exactly how that feels, you know exactly what he means. You think about the kindness handed to you on a silver platter by Roxy, by Jane, and feel an ache in your chest. "Do you want to be forgiven?" you blurt, and try not to back down when he outright laughs at you.

"What is it with you kids and your fucked up questions?" he manages, dragging a hand down his face.

"Well, you could try fuckin' answering them, for starters," you say. Shrug.

Bro watches you a long moment, like he's debating something. You don't know what.

"You gonna offer me a cigarette next?" you snap, a little cruelly, because you don't like it when people stare at you. Especially not when that person is you.

He wrinkles his nose, stubs out the butt on the cement with his foot. "Fuck no. You're a kid, and smoking's a bad fucking habit you don't need."

You raise an eyebrow over your shades. "You gave me a joint last time."

"Weed ain't a highly addictive and damaging substance, it just makes you stupid for awhile," he snorts, but you think he's almost smiling. "If you want more weed, I'll give you more weed."

You hesitate. "I don't. I don't know."

"You might have to share with Dave, though," he adds, and yeah, that's definitely a smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

"You think he could handle that?" You're not really sure what Dave high would be like. Either hilarious, or really fucking depressing.

"Mm, hard to say, honestly." He pulls out another cigarette and you see that his hands shake, just a little. "Figure it'll either make his comics off the fucking chain hilarious, or he'll cry. He was always a sensitive kid."

"No thanks to you," you say dryly.

He nods, muffles a laugh. It's a little sad. "Yeah. He gets that from Rox."

"And you're cool with that? Getting him high when he doesn't really trust you."

"I didn't really think he'd want to at all," Bro says, and he sighs, sends a cloud of smoke up into the air that stings your eyes. "But he found out about our lil rendezvous and got hells of jealous. Figure I'd rather have him obtain weed from a reputable source, in the safety of his own home, than play out some antiquated teenage rebellion scene involving a shady grifter and a back alley that smells like piss."

"That might be the most mature thing you've ever said in recent history," you offer.

"Should watch me do the absolute shitshow worth of backlogged taxes I'm filing," he says, wry, a little exasperated. "Dave dragged the shit out of me for 'sounding like an old man'." The accuracy of his impression both unnerves and, well, impresses you.

You are reminded, very suddenly, that both of you fucking love puppets.

"I had a Cal," you blurt, and watch him go rigid before you, mouth slightly parted, cigarette between two fingers, eyes hooded mid-blink, face drained of color like marble, glowing in the ugly yellow street lights. You don't know why you said that. It has been heavily implied by both Dave and DS and pretty much everyone else that it's part of why his shit went sideways. Curiosity, maybe. A deep-seated cruelty based in fascination.

"He was empty, though," you keep going. "Not like. Like yours. But I know what it's like. To lose something you felt defined you."

Bro drags in air like he wasn't breathing, shoves the cigarette between his lips. "Yeah, uh. Yeah, losing my main man fucking sucks, I guess but. I, I don't -" He stutters and your anxiety turns your stomach in knots. "I don't know," he says weakly, shoulders slumping further. It's kind of a wonder his clothes don't just roll off him, the way his form curls and twists like water, fluid and weird and slouching.

"Sorry," you manage, so small your voice cracks.

Bro sighs, drops down into a crouch again, presses his hands over his eyes. "Don't apologize. It's not your fault."

"I'm not sure that's entirely true," you say, and mean it. "I've always felt partially at fault for any of my splinter selves, and regardless of outside influence, I am aware of my many character flaws."

"You shouldn't," he says, peeking at you comically from between his fingers. "I'm trying to own up to my own shit, here. I don't need help, and I don't think as an adult that letting you try to take on the burden of my own shit is very responsible."

"Well," you say. Shrug weakly. It's the only way you know how to be. "I wasn't really expecting to ever meet you, if I'm being frank."

"I thought you were Dirk," he says, and his voice is a low drawl and you feel yourself turn pink from the tip of your ears down to your toes.

"Fuck you!"

He wheezes a soft laugh, grinds the unfinished half of his cigarette into the verge. "C'mon, come with me."

You watch his retreating back and you are so fucking flabbergasted, so mortified. You just got dad joked by yourself. This is lame. You are so fucking lame.

But you follow him, skip to keep up with his loping pace, trot down the stairs in perfect harmony.

 

He takes you to the parking garage.

You've never seen the parking garage before. It still existed in your time, of course, made of metal and concrete beams, but being street level, you could never safely swim that far down. You have seen the pitted roof a hundred times over, have always wondered.

It's not much to look at, really. Low ceiling, dim lights. Two obvious exists, an emergency door. You don't feel proud of yourself, just underwhelmed.

Bro doesn't wait for you, halfway across the floor before you notice he's missing.

You have heard about The Truck. You've heard how much the clutch sticks when shifting gears, how the AC doesn't work, how Dave puked on the floor as a kid. You know it probably needs a fucking oil change, sitting here for three damn years.

"What are you doing?" you ask, because you don't remember Bro grabbing his keys, but he has them now, is climbing into the cab and adjusting his mirrors, muttering under his breath.

"Hmm. Thought I'd go for a drive." The careful way he regards you, one hand on the wheel, leg swinging outside the door, brings you back to the roof that night, him holding out a hand to you.

_"Gets loud in there sometimes, doesn't it?"_

He's offering you something. He is giving you an opportunity.

"I don't know," you say.

"That's fine," he shrugs. Spins the keys around his fingers.

But it  _isn't_ fine.

You don't want to be afraid anymore.

Hell, even Roxy can make it out and fucking about. You're embarrassed, to be crippled by something so simple.  
Jane and Roxy would be disappointed to know you've fallen back into this loop of being harsh on yourself, but they're not here, and you stomp around the other side, yank the door open.

"I don't know how this is going to go," you tell him.

"That's okay," he says, and doesn't blink when you cringe away from him as he leans over, pulls a belt across your lap. "In this house, we buckle the fuck up."

"Why," you grouse, but he slaps your hands when you attempt to unbuckle. You hate feeling trapped.

"Kid, ain't you ever seen an after school special? Don't fucking test me on this I will lock you in there."

"I'd like to see you try," you protest, albeit weakly. You have seen movies. You know better than to argue with the person driving the giant blue death machine.

The look he gives you makes it very clear this is something he can, and will do, so you drop it, raise your hands in surrender.

"It's not that bad, at night," he says gently. "We're just gonna circle the block a few times, a'ight? Nothing you can't see from the roof."

"Why are you being so -" _nice to me_. You bite your cheek.

Bro sighs, backs up and lets the wheel roll beneath his fingers. "Because I'm fucking high. I don't know. Because I need outta this place. Take it or fucking leave it, I guess."  
"You're a dick," you grunt, though you can't really be mad, because he's you, and you're also kind of a dick.

"I know that," he says, goes around the garage once, and you count one more emergency door, and a ramp that's locked. "Think you can handle this?" He pauses by the exit, looks at you, and it's weird, still, seeing your face unshaded, but older, nose crooked, scruff across the chin. At least you'll age well, you guess.

"I don't know," you say honestly, hunker down a little. "Are you really high?"

"Nah," he says, one hand draped over the wheel, the other on the stick. "Meds're just kicking in, I think."

"Kinda fucked up you were driving around unmedicated before, seems a little dangerous."

He hums, shrugs. "Didn't really think about it, honestly. Tacos were worth it, anyway."

Your entire stomach rattles as he rolls up the ramp onto the street, and suddenly your heart is in your throat. You can't do this. You can. You're not ready. You can do this.

According to your shades, the local time is 3:12 am, and the streets are mostly empty. Pavement is shaded in sallow gold, cars on the side of the road ranging from shiny new to dingy old. A few cars roll by while Bro sits there, and you can't tell if he's gauging your reaction, or just tired and thinking about going back upstairs to sleep.

"Houston ain't much to look at during the off hours," he sighs, and finally pulls onto the road. "But it's quiet, anyhow." You watch him unroll the window, don't flinch for the warm air that buffers your face.

He doesn't comment on the way you've sunk into your seat, or that you're pretty sure your heart is beating loud enough for both of you to hear. You stare up at the sparse trees lining the roads, taste the humidity in the air, and you feel sad.

You recognize a lot of the buildings, for sure. You're just used to seeing them under a million gallons of fucking water, dilapidated and crumbling.

You pass an empty billboard you'd know anywhere, the old ad for SBaHJ so pointedly missing, and you feel your chest tighten, your throat close up.

It's exactly what you feared. Not a trace of him. Not a single fragment of him anywhere.

You want your Dave so bad it hurts.

"Did you really know what the scratch was?" you murmur, when you've gone around for a second time. The sky is cloudless tonight, but that grey-brown smog clings like a film, and you can't see the stars.

Bro sighs so softly, drums his fingers across the wheel. "To a point. I could tell shit was going tits-up, I had this..." You can practically hear his teeth grind together. "I just knew it had to be done."

You get the very distinct feeling that if you don't change the subject, he's going to lose it.

"The only thing I know I like is orange soda and Jane's cupcakes and I don't want to tell Dave because it's really fucking lame."

Well.

Hadn't planned on that coming out.

"Jane like Jane Egbert?" Bro asks, and you think he sounds surprised.

"It's Crocker, actually."

"Mm. I don't think he'll - well okay he might, but you can mock him for literally only eating applesauce and pepperoni pizza for the first four years of his life, if you want. Ain't nothing wrong with sweets."

You bite your cheek. "He really ate just applesauce?"

" _Hated_ baby food," Bro groans, and it's like you're talking to a normal person, who is also a dad. It's odd, but kind of charming. "He'd cry if I didn't fuckin give him his juice, and God I wish I was kidding, but nah, he was pretty much the fussiest baby in the world."

You don't remember a lot of being little. You're pretty sure most people don't, and you know it's just because you're hella smart, and maybe a little fucked up. You remember finding canned food for the first time, and crying because you couldn't get the lid open. Somehow that's less upsetting than driving around the block five times.

Maybe it's not so bad, being out here at night, in a car that's quiet aside from the vibration of the floor, that's dark aside from passing lights, swinging over you and then away. "Could fall asleep like this," you mumble, don't think much of it.

"Heh, yeah," Bro says, and you hear the smile in his voice. "When I first got the truck, back when Dave was two? Maybe three? He started having trouble sleeping, and he'd cry and cry. Like seriously, nothing would fucking get him to stop. I started taking him with me to work." You do look at Bro then, your head against the window, your shades pushed into your hair.

And he is smiling, a fragile little thing, eyes on the road, hands at ten and two, just like Dave said.

"Even when I stopped working nights, it always seemed to help. Then I -" He licks his lips, voice going faint. "I don't know what happened. Things changed. I changed."

"It's not too late to change again," you offer, and think you mean it.

Bro inhales through his nose, Adam's apple bobbing up and down. "Yes," he says, ever so softly, voice broken, deep and sad.

"Hmm?" you hum, half-asleep against the window.

He doesn't look at you, but you can see the nervous clench of his jaw, the way his knuckles are going white. "Yes," he says again, "I want to be forgiven. I just don't know how."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> throws confetti  
> please forgive me for doin this again  
> It totally gets happier later


	10. a sinking feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davesprite is really tired. He and Bro make progress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's small but this is like. A precursor chapter. Hmm.

The Lalondes have been in your life for almost two weeks, but you feel a little bit better than you did before. (You feel a little CROWDED, honestly, but at least you can move by yourself now.)

Mom is crazy into parenting, drags you to Houston Funplex, begs you go to the Rainforest Cafe, and a bunch of other silly shit you haven't done since you were really little. And wildest of all, Bro tolerates it, tags along or even just drives you there.

The meds are working, you think. They're doing something, at least. He seems more coherent, sleeps less and hangs around a bit longer when you gather together, drags a card table out from some ungodly place so that you can all eat dinner.

You watch him like a hawk, follow him around the entire apartment, take note of how he grunts and snarks a bit with Mom, and (ow) kicks you under the table during meals when you quip at him. It's like he's actually trying, even if it's clear how fucking uncomfortable he is, the way he side-eyes Rose and avoids Roxy all together.

Mom also gets you and Dave back into the swing of homeschool, your online courses that are now way fucking above your last three years of education.

But Mom is smart, good with math, and you'd say "this must be where you get it" but you've seen Dirk at work in the corner, muttering to himself. You got two hells of smart parents.

Dirk and Roxy, coincidentally, don't technically exist, and therefore don't have any kind of school at all. You're a bit miffed, but Roxy says she can cheat the system and pass you guys, if you want.

"No," Bro says, when he hears her plan, and the way she hides her smile, eyes sparkling with mischief, makes it clear she is neither afraid of, nor going to listen to, your brother.

"Just let me tutor you," Mom says, exasperated.

"I hate school," you and Dave say.

"Shut up," they both tell you.

This is really happening. You are seriously getting parented right now. It's kind of bullshit.

You also start physical therapy, which is hard, and sucks a lot. They won't let you wear your shades in the building, and Mom is the one who takes you because she doesn't trust Bro not to cave under pressure.

"I'm not a child," he says, and you think he sounds more amused than annoyed.

"It's very clear you have a soft spot when it comes to Dave," Mom says, too cheerful, and you realize she's trying to embarrass him. "Knowing you, you'll end up at god... dang Taco Bell instead and I'll get a call saying he never showed up!"

Bro looks at you, raises an eyebrow, and shrugs. _She's got a point,_ he's saying.

"You fucking suck," you tell him, and his lips twitch.

"I know."

 

The next time he has a seizure, he falls in the kitchen and hits his head against the counter, cuts his leg open on a star that you missed, fuck, how could you have MISSED --  
Rose is the closest, and she's got something soft under his head, is shouting at Dave for time, time, Dave she needs the TIME, before you can even get your chair into the other room.

She's the one who rides with Mom to the hospital, leaving you home ripping your fucking hair out over your own stupidity.

You should have been more careful. You should have checked again.

"It's okay, Dave," Roxy says, gentle as anything, squatting before you. She grabs your hand and gives you a big smile, though it doesn't quite reach her eyes. It's the first time it's happened since they got there, and you almost feel guilty that they had to see that. "He'll be okay, the docs r gonna fix him right up!"

You don't know about that, but you roll back to the futon, sit in the corner by Bro's pillow, and Dirk sits next to you, close enough that your knees touch. (Dave is in the bathroom, puking, and no one wants to disturb him.)

"He's been better though, hasn't he?" Dirk says, and it's quiet, cajoling. He doesn't know how to make you feel better, and you don't know how to let him.

"Yeah," you murmur. Lick your lips. "Yeah he. He's funnier now, huh? Than he was before."

And you guess that's kind of true. Bro's sense of humor has always skewed wildly to the side, to the point where you couldn't tell what was genuine and ironic. You know now a lot of that was bullshit, and also probably not entirely him, but you don't mind the way he is now, with his crooked smile and fucked up death wish.

"Figure you had to get that somewhere," he says, offers a smile. "He dad joked me the other day, you know."

"Bullshit," you scoff, shove him in the shoulder.

"Mm, it's true," Roxy says, crawling over the back of the futon and rolling into Dirk's lap, her feet square in yours. You don't protest. "The other night he took Dirk out for a drive at like, 3 am. 'Pparently told him all sorts of goofy stories about u as a kiddo."

You feel yourself pale, ears tingeing red. "Are you fucking - dude you can't just keep that from me, that's private goddamn information. This is a defamation lawsuit waiting to happen."

"It was mostly about your insatiable AJ craving," Dirk says, but he's fighting a grin.

"That is so fucking lame," you mutter, cover your face with your hand. "I can't believe he remembers all that."

"I think it's probs in the job description," Roxy says, but she's sounding super fucking amused. "Momlonde blabbed all sorts of stuff about Rose when she was a lil cutie, too. She used to talk to Jaspers and tell him all her secrets, hells of fucking cute, am I right?"

You muffle a laugh in your hand. "God, letting you two near them was the worst possible thing we coulda done, huh?"

"Only in the sense that we're now forced to watch ourselves age rapidly before we have the chance to even reach that stage in our lives," Dirk says, a bit morbidly.

"You're kind of a fucked up dude," you tell him, albeit lightly.

"I keep trying to tell him that," your voice comes in stereo, and you roll your head back to see Dave, leaning against the door frame, looking unearthly pale and a little shaky.

"Aww, c'mere, Davey." Roxy opens her arms, never mind that she's on Dirk's lap, and he shuffles into the room, hugging himself and going boneless on the futon.

"It'll be okay," she says, pats his head. Pat pat.

Dirk looks at you a little helplessly, but you smile, squeeze Dave's shin.

"Dude's practically, unkillable man. You know that."

"M'just really tired of seeing him that way," Dave murmurs, and he buries his face in Dirk's armpit. It's really fucking embarrassing, and he shows no sign of moving any time soon.

"Stop being gross," you tell him.

"No," he says.

Dirk lets out a breathy laugh, puts an arm over your shoulders. "It's okay. Let him be weird and gross."

"It's making me look bad, I cannot have him going around armpit huffing." You try to smack at him over Roxy's head.

"Fuck you, it's my new kink now, this is all I'm going to do for the rest of my life," Dave says stubbornly, shoving your hands away and clinging tight to Dirk's shirt with the other. "I'm gonna spend the rest of my days like this, nose shoved in the armpits of random dudes, lamenting my loss of innocence in a world so cruel."

Dirk sighs, looks at the ceiling. "I take it back. Dave, please stop fucking talking."

"No,  _you_ stop fucking talking! I'm over here, doing my best, trying to get my chill on, pouting on my best bro and teen mom, and none'a y'all will let me live. Do I mock your weird puppet fetish? Nah, even though it'd be so damn easy, and fuck man you make it so easy. Let me pretend to be into armpits for five minutes."

"Dave, you are kinda gross," Roxy says, but she's snickering now.

"I am being kinkshamed by this whole family," is his muffled reply, and you finally crack.

 

Mom spent approximately twenty minutes yelling at the doctors.

Rose recounts this in great detail, head in her hands, extremely embarrassed. She and Bro had sat in the hall, trying not to look involved, while she swore so loud the entire emergency room could hear her. Bro looked like he was stuck between laughing and sinking through the floor, so Rose had pat him on the leg, and she was still feeling weird about it.

They come home with new meds, anticonvulsants, and you add them to the growing stock in your bathroom cabinet.

Bro doesn't even seem to care that you're all piled on the futon, just kicks off his shoes and drops face first onto the carpet where he falls the fuck asleep. Well. Okay. Not concerning at all.

 

He finds you later, after you get Mom to drag you and your wheelchair up to the roof. It's not a lot of privacy, but it's the most you get, and physical therapy always makes you cranky. You hate the way they treat you, like an idiot kid, and how Mom always asks how it went a little too patronizingly. You didn't even want to go, not after Bro's seizure, not when you spend the entire time obsessed with thinking he might die again. You really wish you could still fucking fly, and then none of it would matter anymore.

He drops down next to you, hiding in the shade behind the AC Unit, and leans back against it, the only refuge from the heat.

"Hey," he says. "Heard you weren't feeling too hot."

"I'd say I'm feeling pretty fucking hot," you snap, hands gripping your wheels til your knuckles go white. "It's like a hundred goddamn degrees out here, I'm sitting in a metal death trap, and my knees hurt."

"There's a joke to be made there," he says blandly.

"Not by you," you say, quickly, desperately.

He breathes out his nose in a way you know now means laughter. "Alright, alright, c'mere." You cringe away when he reaches for you, but he persists, grabs your wrist and pulls you so gently from your chair it's like slow motion, until you're folded beside him on the ground, neck against cool metal, hands to the still hot gravel.

"Better?" he asks, voice soft. He sounds tired.

"I guess so," you shrug. "It's just. It gets really cramped sometimes? And I can just fucking hear them hesitate, and everyone asks if I need help all the time."

He hums agreement, and it's quiet for awhile.

"Sorry," he says eventually, and it's stilted, awkward. He doesn't look at you, not even when your head wheels around in shock. You have never heard Bro apologize to anyone. He's frowning, looking at his hands.

"What?" you manage.

"That you had to see that, again," he says. "I thought I had it under control. I'm sorry, Dave."

You're. Speechless, really. It's completely outside what you consider your realm of possibility, and you choke on a reply. "Okay," you say.

He sighs, cracks the joints in his fingers. He's always been like that, high-strung, fidgety. "Yeah."

"I just really want to be alone sometimes," you admit suddenly, like you can't control it. "It's part of why I broke up with Jade, I think. I was just thinking about a lot of stuff, I guess, about how there were all those consorts, and how it was so hard to just get a moment of peace, and how they always made me feel like I was the odd man out, even when it was just the two of us." You pull your knees to your chest. "And I don't mind having the Lalondes here. I mean, fuck, it's the most normal I think my life has ever felt. It's cool having a real parental guardian," you tell him, don't add, _"n_ _o offense."_

"But I still can't sleep in my bed, and I don't really mind the floor, but I kinda um. I LIKED sleeping next to you. I felt. Uhm." You look away, pick at your shoelace. It's really fucking embarrassing, what you're doing here. You should knock it off. "I didn't feel as afraid, as I maybe used to be? Like I know you're still an insane sword-wielding asshole, but I felt less like it was aimed in my direction, and more at imaginary intruders. Sorry," you say, suddenly red to the roots. "That sounds really fucking lame."

"It's more than I deserve," he says, and you glance at him in time to see him smile at his feet. "But I appreciate the sentiment, all the same."

"Haha, yeah. Idk, man, I just. Sometimes, even though I can tell they're trying, I still feel like the fifth wheel. It sucks. I know I complain a lot, I know. I just. Keep expecting it to get better? Than it is."

"Right," he says, and then he does look at you. You can tell immediately that he's got some kind of speech planned, is hesitating like Dirk does when he doesn't want to talk about something. "You know it's okay, if you don't want to be Dave anymore."

That stuns you, more than you're willing to let on. "No, I- I do," you say in a rush. "Like that's the problem? I  _am_ Dave. I know I'm Dave. I just. Hate being the extra. I feel like a spare." Your insides clench, your breath hitches in your chest. "I feel like even if I died tomorrow, in a week it wouldn't matter because I served my purpose, and Dave will still exist without me."

Bro lets out a long breath, takes off his hat, runs a hand through his hair. " _Christ_ , kid."

"Sorry," you offer weakly.

"Dave," he says

You curl into yourself. "No, I know."

"Dave," he says again. "You remember that. That thing. Chess piece. With the wings."

Fuck, how could you forget. The sensation of your wing in his hands as he ripped it off your body, the horrifying realization that he was growing a snout and ears, how he crackled green all the way down. "His name was Jack."

He grunts. Pauses, clears his throat. "You know, when I took that blow, that wasn't for a spare Dave," he murmurs. He rolls his head back to stare at you, gaze steady. "That wasn't even for Dave. That was for you."

And maybe you're weak, and maybe it's too easy, to say all that, to fake genuine emotion like that, but you don't care. Your eyes burn, and you blink rapidly. "Yeah?" you croak.

He smiles, just for you, thin and small, and puts a gloved hand carefully on your head, so you see it coming, so you don't flinch. "Yeah."

You stay like that for a long time, until the sun starts to go down and the light comes around the opposite side of the AC unit. He helps you back into your chair without being asked, follows after you slowly.

"Dave," he says, pausing at the top the stairs. You think maybe he's going to make a joke, warn you and then push you down feet first, but the look on his face is pinched, thoughtful.

"Bro," you drawl, facetiously.

He doesn't respond to that, the pull of his lip serious, his eyebrows furrowed. "Do you or Dave still have your time powers?"

That throws you for such a loop that you do almost roll into the stairs, and he stops you with a single hand on the back of your chair. "Um," you choke, "Not that I know of?"

He pauses just a second longer, sighs through his nose. Rubs at his eyes. "Alright."

When he walks you down the stairs, your fingers curled in his shirt, you feel, just for a moment, like you're missing something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. interesting! c:  
> sorry it's a little short, but it was something i had to get out of the way!


	11. rock bottom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> magic is real, and you are not a god.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's only a little gruesome. part 1/2, although they will be posted together!

There are a few things you have accepted in this new world: that your legs don't work, that Dorito Locos Tacos are a gift from god, that Obama still being president is fucking dope, and that there is no magic here.

You think about Bro's words for days, don't say shit to the others, even though you so desperately want to blab to Rose it isn't funny.

What the fuck did he mean?

Is it like before? Does Bro know something you don't? (The likelihood of this, you realize, is extremely high.)

Needless to say, the first time Dave rewinds time, you almost fucking puke.

Mom and Bro reach the apex of their stress levels by the first month. The Lalondes have been in Houston for long enough that you can't fucking remember what a bed feels like, and your legs, while still not entirely working, have got enough feeling back for you to know they're fucking aching.

Bro finally drives them out of the apartment at the beginning of July (you're still not sure what happened, you woke up to the tail end of Mom telling him " _Fine_ ," and Bro sighing, pinching his nose, and helping her with her bags). You almost weep for joy, the first time you roll back onto the futon. Bro hides a smile, pretends not to notice, and you don't mention that he looks a little strung out.

They don't leave though (thank God, can you even imagine), have a hotel down the street, and you, Dirk, and Dave have been making frequent visits to swim in the pool. It's awesome, seeing Dirk out of the house, a little less hesitant, and growing more confident at every turn. He swims like a fucking fish, can hold his breath for way too long, and it's little embarrassing, comparing yourself to him, so you try not to. But it's good for you, anyway, and it's more exercise than you've gotten in months.

Mom does eventually trust Bro to take you to physical therapy, although he always picks her up first, and much to her exasperation, always gets Taco Bell after, to the point where her rant about bad health choices is pretty much seared into your skull. It's okay, though, because you think you're almost happy like this.

  
You're sitting in the kitchen when it happens, just for a change in fucking scenery, just for something to do. Your butt's a little damp, water running in the sink, splashed up all over the counter, and you say, "Dude, can you get me a towel? I apparently don't know shit about washing dishes." Which you don't, because you've never had dishes to wash. The ones from last night are still there, and Mom told you that they better fucking be gone before tonight or she wasn't gonna help with dinner again.

Bro sighs, pausing his game and pushing himself up off the couch and he says -

Time goes wavy around you. You can't explain it, can't describe what it's like, to feel the continuum stutter to a halt, like a glitch, like a stutter in the system.

There's a hiss, then a pop, a wink in existence, and everything shifts to the left as Dave appears next to Bro by the futon.

"Down," Dave says, hand on your brother's chest. His hands are shaking, hard. "I really wish I had more time to explain this to you but please just lie the fuck back down and trust me for once in your miserable fucking life."

Bro, for his part, looks completely unbothered by this, and aside from leaning away from Dave's touch, does as he's told, flopping back on the futon like a puppet.

You're immediately scrambling into your chair, practically roll off the counter, ignore how your elbow crashes into the arm of it.

"What the fuck," you say, and Dave isn't listening, shuffling around Bro, muttering to himself. "Dave," you try.

You sit there by the table, flabbergasted, watching as Dave keeps maneuvering Bro, shoving him onto his side and tucking the pillow under his head, voice soft, just "No, like this. And this over here..."

Bro is pliant, curling at the knees and not protesting when Dave plucks off his glasses and folds them gently before handing them to you.

"What the fuck," you say again.

Dave gives you a look you almost don't recognize, eyebrows furrowed, mouth slightly open. "I don't know how much time I have," he says.

"I don't know what that means," you whisper, anxiety sinking into your bones. You don't know what's happening, you can't stop the way you feel your body flush hot, scorching fear, heart slamming in your ears.

Dave looks at Bro, head tilted to the side, and nods. He sits down hard on the coffee table, and offers his hand to him, elbow propped on his knee, and you notice how shaken he is, bone white and covered in a thin sheen of sweat, hair sticking to his forehead in unattractive clumps.

Bro presses his lips together in a way that reminds you so much of Dirk. He doesn't look like he wants to take it. "That bad?"

Dave nods, short, curt.

He lets out a shuddering breath and wraps his hand in Dave's, holds it so tight you can see his palmaris tendon flexing.

"Hey, did you guys feel - whoa."

Dave stares at Dave and then at you, then to where he and Bro are entwined. "What the fuck."

"Dude," you say, weak, shaky. You shrug. "Don't look at me, I have no idea what's going on."

"You can still time travel?" Dirk pops his head over Dave's shoulder.

"I don't know," he says weakly, and future Dave says, "yeah I guess? Surprise?"

"What are you doing," Dave asks from Bro, and he just sighs, doesn't let go of Dave's hand.

"Wasn't my idea. Apparently I'm about to fucking die or something and..." He trails off, looks at future Dave, then you, then current Dave. He puts his tongue in his cheek. "Anyone else seeing triple?"

"That's not funny," all three of you say together, and Dirk looks heavenward.

"You're not going to die," you tell Bro, shoving his leg. He kicks you for it, and you let it roll you back a little. You look at Future Dave. "Is he?"

"I don't know yet," he admits, refusing to look at you. He's refusing to look at any of you.

You furrow your brow, squeeze the wheel of your chair. "What do you mean you don't -"

"Call Rose," he tells Dave, who is standing there helplessly, fists clenched and frowning.

He grapples for his phone but can't find it, so you offer yours, and pretend not to see the hesitation on his face as he comes to stand next to you. Your fingers brush lightly and you think about how cold his hands are, try to remember if yours were ever that frigid.

"Is there anything I can do?" Dirk asks helplessly, standing to the side and looking very much like he'd rather leave.

"You can come hold my other hand if you want," Bro drawls, wiggling his fingers at him. There's something weirdly kind about his words, like he's joking, but not really. He's always like that with Dirk, this kind of tentative friendliness that only seems to develop when nobody else is looking.

Dirk stares at the worn leather glove like it might bite him, and shakes his head, mouth curling down in misery.

Bro lets his arm flop back down, rests it under his chin. Even without his glasses, his expression is cool, unimpressed, but you know better, and pat his leg, though it's more for your benefit than his.

"And I'm gonna need someone who isn't currently me to keep count," future Dave says, and his leg is shaking, teeth chattering, "because I have it on good authority that this really, really fucking hurts."

Bro frowns. "Jesus kid I'm not gonna to rip your arm off -" He tries to tug away but Dave latches on with his other hand, and you watch Bro's eyes glaze over, and you know what's coming next but you can't look away.

It occurs to you that Dave's already on the phone before Bro even starts to convulse.

It's bad.

It's worse than the time he sliced his knee on the star, it's worse than the first time, whole body vibrating, legs jerking and blood pooling out of mouth and then his nose and you want to look away but you _can't_.

Future Dave doesn't move, both hands clamped over Bro's, teeth grit, brows knit, leg bouncing. His eyes are open, you can see around his shades, and they're blurry with tears.  
You can hear Dave muttering behind you, but when you manage a look at him, you realize he's counting, eyes wide and shoulders shaking. Dirk is holding his hand.

You hunch in your chair, try not to puke, and wrap your hand uselessly in Dave's cape, try not to look at Bro, try not to think about blood.

The Lalondes are home before it's over, and you figure it can't have been more than five minutes (but Christ he's never had one so long before he's never bled like that he's dying), but it feels like eons.

Nobody speaks as Mom hoists Bro effortlessly, folding him into her arms like he weighs nothing. He makes a faint noise of cognition but that's all, and his skin looks thin and papery, ghost white and veins prominent. Mom doesn't complain when she's followed out of the apartment, Roxy and Rose taking either side of Dirk, who is shaking from head to toe and staggers to walk.

Future Dave stops Dave before he can follow them, and the look that crosses his face damn near breaks your heart. Future Dave shakes his head. "Sorry, dude, this is when you get off."

"But -" he goes to step forward, and Dave pushes him in the chest.

"Look, man, there's already two of us -"

"I'm not -"

"The hospital's not gonna fall for the twin thing when we're the exact same person," Future Dave snaps, aggravated. "It's your turn to be me now. Try like. Idk man, just take it slowly and try not to break anything? Maybe if you ask nicely, DS will give you some pointers."

He slams the door in both your faces, and you watch as Dave struggles to say something.

You wait a minute, but it's like he's paralyzed, frozen in place.

When he doesn't move, you wheel over to the futon and haul yourself up onto it, careful to avoid the blood. "I don't really like hospitals, anyways."

It's like he's just realizing you're still here (go figure), face stuck in surprised fear. "Thanks," he says, softly, and then he just stands there.

"He didn't even ask if I wanted to go," you lament, trying not to be pissed. You fail. It's not fair. Your hands curl into your pants, shaking in fury. It's not fair. It's not fucking fair.

What if he dies.

Fuck, _what if he dies_?

"Maybe he knew I'd need you," Dave offers, vaguely humorless, and comes to sit in front of you on the coffee table. He takes off his glasses, presses his face into his hands, and lets out a shuddering breath.

You don't know what to do, stuck here with yourself, miserable as anything. You hesitate, and then reach out, ignore how he flinches when you push the hair out of his eyes. "I can't time travel," you whisper. "I don't know how I can help you."

"It's not your fault," he manages, and the two of you sit there, bowed together, feeling pathetic and useless.  


[==> Be the Other Dave](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16626638/chapters/39462877)  
 

Bro does not come home with them that night, and neither does Mom.

They find you alone, clutching your phone and staring at the wall, and Roxy walks right up to you without a word. Wraps her arms around you tight, kisses your forehead, strokes your hair.

Dave nods to you, but he hangs back by the door while Rose comes around the other side of you and sits down, takes your hands in hers.

You're expecting the worst, especially when you don't see Dirk, and your heart pounds in your ears while Rose works up the courage to speak. Her lipstick has all but been smeared away, and it's bizarre, feels too intimate.

"Please just tell me he's not fucking dead," you croak, and you don't care that they can tell you've been crying.

"He's not," Roxy blurts, before Rose can.

"They think he had a intracerebral hemmorhage," Rose says, voice tempered. "A bleed in his brain. They don't know for sure. They couldn't do an MRI scan right now because -"

"Pins in his arm," you and Dave say at once.

"He fell down the stairs when he was twelve," you finish.

Rose squeezes your hands. "They're not sure how bad it was. He's been having seizures for awhile, they're worried it happened weeks ago and they missed it. They're keeping him overnight, maybe longer. Mom decided to stay with him."

You can't look at any of them, just keep thinking about Dave's hands, heating up in yours, the way his form flickered like he couldn't stay grounded to reality. What you say is, "Where's Dirk?"

Roxy and Dave share an uncomfortable look. "He needed a minute," she says softly. "He went to the roof."

  
When you find Dirk, he's still puking. Roxy sets your wheelchair down delicately, and then you in it, and she's absconded before you get your hands on your wheels.

It's another hot one tonight, and your palms are burning from earlier, you still feel fuzzy around the edges, like you aren't real.

"Hey," you call, make sure your approach is as squeaky and obnoxious as it can be, so he doesn't flinch.

He freezes up instead, still as a statue, and you open your mouth to apologize. You don't get that far, his facade buckling as he dry-heaves and coughs spittle all over the ground before him. "Sorry," he intones, voice dead. He doesn't look at you.

"Yeah." You stare at the gravel, wet with ick. "Are you okay?"

"No," he says, miserable, and you wheel around his other side when he sits down, puts his head in his hands. He's all folded up, small as he can go, and the hair on the back of his head is flattened, a little matted.

"I get it." You should leave him alone. Or shouldn't, anyway, because fuck knows what this guy will do if you leave him to fester in his thoughts. You consider the ramifications of having to ask for help later, how much you don't want anyone to fucking touch you, the terror of you leaking all over him like you did Dave. But you decide the good it'll do him outweighs the bad it'll cost you. So you pitch yourself from your chair and throw your arms around him.

Dirk freezes up again. He smells like sweat and vomit and you only just keep yourself from gagging. Not his fault. His arms are clammy, shoulders like a still as stone, just like Bro.

"It'll be okay," you tell him, even though you don't believe it. Even though he won't believe it. You cling as tight as you can. "He'll be okay."

He heaves a little and it becomes a cough, and when his finally moves his hands, clutches your arm to keep you there, you don't bring up the fact that he's crying.

  
Future Dave - Just Dave - is the only one waiting for you when you and Dirk come back downstairs. He's standing next to the futon, staring at the place where some of Bro's blood stains the fabric.

"M'going to bed," Dirk murmurs, squeezing your hand, and you let him go to Dave, don't mind the way he leans over, whispers something in his ear. They press their foreheads together, stay there for a second, and then Dirk slumps off towards their room, arms wrapped around himself.

"Thanks for that," Dave says to you, when the door closes.

You just hum, wipe your hands off on your pants. "Rox and Rose?"

"Convinced them to take the floor," he says, and he turns to look at you. "Dirk needs the bed."

"He didn't even shower," you point out.

Dave shrugs. "Can you blame him?"

"No," you say, let out a shaky sigh. "But hey. You figured it out, huh?"

Dave looks calm now, though he's still deadly pale, hair still a mess. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah I remember." It's like he's aged in less than a few hours, and the way he holds himself makes you dreadfully uncomfortable.

"He won't die now, will he?" you ask, soft as you can to mask your terror.

"I told you," he sighs, and there's Dave again, slumping shoulders and limp arms. "I don't know yet. I think we made it in time. But I don't know."

You feel cold and hot all at once, stomach still roiling. You're sweaty, and Dirk's vomit is on your shirt. You really want to go to bed. But you aren't tired. "Stay up with me?" you whisper, and it's a big ask, you know it is. Dude just rediscovered time travel, has done more work than you and looks the part.

Dave stares at you blankly. You think he's going say no. "Uh." He coughs, clears his throat. "Yeah. Yeah, man. I just. Uh. Yeah." He darts around the apartment, drags out blankets and pillows, and the two of you make a nest on the floor, huddle together. You both smell like shit, but it's the most comfortable you've felt in hours, and when your eyes finally close, your head dropping onto his shoulder, you take your first deep breath.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I know this is not how magic works but it's a fanfiction and you aren't my mom.


	12. bottom of the rock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> magic is real, and you are a god.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is all made up! Who knows what they're talking about!  
> part 2/2  
> Also, get ready for 3k of feelings.

Shit.

Shit _shit shit shit shit shit SHIT_.

You want to scream.

_Shit fuck shit._

You want to scream and rip your hair out and you don't want to time travel, you don't want to play by the same shitty rules that governed you for three years.

_Fuck fuck fuck._

You want to shake Dave, make him tell you what he knows. You want to be at the hospital. You want Bro to be okay. You don't want him to die.

You and Dave sit there for a long time in complete silence. "What do I need to do," you say finally, when it's too much, when your hands are shaking, when you can't bear the quiet any longer.

"Dude, don't look at me, I never reached godtier." He shrugs, wraps his arms around his knees. You feel bad, most days, that he can't walk. It's not fair, and it's not his fault. He was trying to save you. Trying to save all of you.

"Dave said -"

"I don't care what he said," he grouses, buries his face so you can't see him. When he speaks, his voice is clogged and muffled. "I can't time travel, dude, I can't even fucking walk."

"Then what did he mean?"

"Dunno."

"Dave, look -"

"Davesprite."

"Look, man, I don't know what he means but can you just like. Fucking try?" It sounds callous, you know, and when his head snaps up, shades lopsided, you see he's crying.

"Fuck you."

Okay, that's pretty fucking valid.

"Dude, we're kinda working within some magic time constraints right now, and I have no idea how to do this alone." You rub your eyes, blink back against the way they sting.

"I don't _know_ ," he says, and he yanks at his hair absently.

Hurry up, you want to say.

Still, you're quiet as he thinks, and you can see the concentration in his knit brow, how his eyes flick back and forth like he's reading something. "I... remember that this isn't how it went. The first time."

The first time. What. "What?"

"You were always supposed to come back, I think," he says slowly, and it IS like he's reading, like he's seeing something you can't. "But if you hadn't. That wouldn't have happened." His face contorts and you can practically see it all laid out before you. "Bro fell. I asked him to get a towel and we were arguing and he was going to fall, he came back but he fell, hit his head on the futon and --" He looks sick, pale. More like you, you guess. "Oh god. Oh God."

He scrambles back like he's trying to curl into a tighter ball and you panic, snapping an arm out to grab him.

"Hey, man, what the fuck are yo--"

_Your hands covered in soapy water, ass on the cold counter, knees damp. "Hey man grab me a towel?"_

_Bro sighing, climbing to his feet, "No one told you to do the dishes, birdbrain -"_

_Staggering._

_"Bro?"_

_A hum, rubbing his eyes._

_"Bro!"_

_Dropping, slamming his head against the arm of the futon on the way down, a shock of blood against stark white hair, shouting, convulsions, seeing yourself stagger out of the bedroom holding a sword and you -_

\- drop Dave's arm like it's burned you, blood pounding in your ears, memories that don't belong to you rattling through your head like an echo chamber.  
"What the hell was that," you say, flexing your hand.

He's looking at his own like he sees something you can't, horror and recognition dawning on his face. "No," he whispers. But you don't see anything.

"Dude chill, what's your damage?" He shakes his head and you roll your eyes, grab his hand again, and suddenly, you can see.

Dave - Davesprite's hands feel like the fuzz of an old TV screen, a vibration through your skin, a tingling halo that makes his fingers florescent orange. You let go and it disappears. You grab it and he lights up like a Christmas tree.

"That's... weird," you say weakly.

His mouth moves up and down in soundless misery, but when you touch him again, it's already fading, and then it's like nothing happened at all, just an average dude with average hands. "What the fuck," he whispers. "What did you do?"

"I didn't  _do_ anything," you say, hands up in front of you. Freeze, keep 'em where I can see 'em style. "You're the one with the doomed memories over here."

"Fuck you," he says again, and he looks at the space between you like he's trying to figure something out. "Maybe." He bites his lip, furrows his brow. "Maybe it's the sprite thing? Jade said Sburb wasn't done with us, right? Maybe I still..." He trails off, drops his eyes.

"You're not going to die," you say. He can't. Fuck knows he's been through enough. "Whatever Jade meant, it can't be that."

"I don't want to be a walking tutorial again," he murmurs.

"Well I don't think you'll have to worry about the walking part," you say lightly. The look he gives you is two parts Bro, three parts Rose. "Sorry."

"Dude," he mutters, wipes his arm across his face. "Okay. Okay, so I'm supposed to. What? Help you remember how to time travel?"

"I know how to fucking time travel," you say, but you're not actually sure anymore.

You reach deep down, look for the tug in your stomach, look for the ticking sound that haunted your days and nights, and find a hollow space. "Well. Okay I think I remember."

But you don't know. It's something you've been actively avoiding, since before the end of the game, since before you even landed in the new session. The last time you traveled was to grab Dirk's head, and the idea makes you recoil hard. "I don't know," you say, and feel uneasy.

"Well you better figure it out," he snorts.

"You're supposed to help me," you say, frustration and anxiety bleeding through.

"But I  _can't_ anymore, Dave, I keep fucking telling you that." His expression is open, palms up, helpless, and you feel defeat roll off him in waves. "I couldn't do shit as Davesprite, and I certainly can't do shit now as Dave-Not-A-Sprite."

"So you admit it," you say, and when he stares at you, elaborate, "you're not Davesprite anymore."

"Dude, shut up," he mutters. "It's not the time."

"It seems like now is exactly the time." You kick him in the shin. He jerks away, smacks at you.

"My identity issues have nothing to do with you," he snaps.

"It seems to me they've got  _everything_ to do with me," you say, amused, a little annoyed. "And the fact that you're Dave, and so am I."

"It's not that simple," Dave groans, and he drops his head to his knees again. "I really don't want to talk about this with you, of all people."

"I think I'd be better practice than anyone else."

"Yeah, and you're not even mildly self-centered about that fact at all." He rolls his head to the side, looks at you, unimpressed. "Tell you what. You figure out time travel and I'll let you lecture me about this later, when  _you're_ Future Dave."

"Okay, that's." That's fair, you guess. You're not really happy with it. You've been trying to drag this inferiority complex out of him for literally three months. But he's also right, you do have more important shit to do right now. You might be procrastinating. "Fine," you huff, cross your arms. "So, whaddya got?"

"I mean." He flaps a hand at you. "I have my hand?" He offers it to you, limp and unenthusiastic.

You take it. It's warm, a little sweaty, but otherwise entirely ordinary, like nothing ever happened. "Well this is bullshit and useless. What did you do before? That made it happen?"

He shrugs. "I just thought about Bro, and how it was gonna go and..."

And your hands fuzz together again, like a channel has opened up between you.

_You see green fire, Jack Noir's hound dog face, feel the burning sensation as part of your body is torn away, scrambling across the cold blue earth of John's planet, and turning in time to watch Bro --_

"Okay, okay, I get it," you yelp, snatching your hand back before you can watch the sword pierce his sternum. "So, what? We're the wonder twins now? Except with weird psychic backwards visions?"

"Dunno," he says, and drags you back towards him. "Let me try something else."

His touch is like electricity, buzzing under your skin, and you see _Jade, hair wild and soft, like a cloud around your face as she leans in -_

_\- and then John, smile lopsided, as he shoves a cake under your nose, Nanna grinning over his shoulder, the way their glasses catch the shimmering golden light of the boat -_

Dave sits back, releasing you, and you blink, see the way he smiles softly. "Whoa," he murmurs, voice dreamy. "That's really fucking weird."

"Okay, I really don't appreciate you projecting your crushes onto my brain," you snap, feel your face heating up. You can still feel Jade's lips - ugh weird.

"Fuck off," he snorts, rolls his eyes. "Let me have five seconds before we dive into awakening your latent god powers."

"When I see John again, I do  _not_ need to be dragging around your feelings like dead weight."

"Oh, yes, soooo sorry, Alpha Dave," he says, but the smirk curling on his face is ugly. "I'll try not to feel anything ever again. Let's just get this over with." He drums his fingers on his knee, thinks. "Do you remember the first time we time traveled?"

"Uh," you start. Think. "Vaguely." You don't, really. It was so fucking long ago. Christ, you really got a huge fucking boost from Dave, didn't you?

"Well. I do," he says, and his gaze is steady. "Try to fucking remember, okay?" He goes for your hand, hesitates. "Listen, man," he edges. "If we get in there, you're gonna have to deal with Calsprite."

You feel your stomach drop, dread spreading through you like ice in the veins. You can't thing of anything to say. "Um."

"If you can't handle him, I can't help you."

"No, I can," you say quickly, desperately. You think. Maybe.

"It'll be fine," he dismisses, dragging your hand into his grasp.

You squeeze your eyes closed and think about the first time, the real first time. The pull at your gut and the way you were dizzy and how desperate you'd been to just get away from all the fighting. You try not to focus on Dave's hand on yours, how it feels like a hum of energy, warm and fuzzy like it did when he was a game construct, tangible but not entirely there.

His experience oozes across your memories, four months of desperation, heat and fear and the tick of a clock.

 _HEEHEEHAAHAAHOOHOO_ rakes across the back of your brain and you flinch, jerk your hand away, give him a glare and bare your teeth.

"What the fuck?"

Dave looks at you and you see your eyes, you see Dirk's eyes, how the colors fold over each other. His face is blank. He knows.

_He knows._

"I told you, dude. If you can't handle Calsprite then I can't fucking help you." He wiggles his hand. "It's not real. Try not to think about him." You continue glaring, and he sighs, rolls his eyes. "Okay, I'LL try not to think about him, how's that?"

"Better," you grunt, but you're hesitant to take it again, counting the freckles on his knuckles.

"Dave," he says, and it's soft, a little froggy with unshed tears. "I know it's scary. I don't understand it either. I don't know what's up with me and you, I don't get this weird half-assed freaky Friday shituation, and honestly I can't even tell Time anymore. But this is all I have to offer."

You can't blame him, and so you grab his hand again, try not to think about that needling hum.

A clock ticks behind your right ear and that, at least, is familiar. The sensation of falling, sweat trapped between your skin and a starched black suit, the sing of screeching metal in your ears.

 _HEEHEE HAAHAA_ and the flap of wings, that existential dread, where is Bro, where did he go did he die he's gone where's John why are you all alone.

The ticking of time across the back of your eyelids, the thrum of the universe as everything around you shifts to the left --

You let go of him and know what you have to do. You just don't know if you can.

Davesprite looks at you, raises his eyebrows. You nod.

You have to concentrate, focus on your breathing, until you're inhaling 4-4 time, until you can feel the beat in your chest, til sweat starts to bead on your forehead from effort.

"Okay." You flex your fingers. Think about it, hand his phone back to him. "Alright."

 

You aim for small. Or, try to. Two weeks ago you all went to the Funplex with Mom and Bro. It was the last weekend before they moved into the hotel. You, Rose, DS, Roxy, and Dirk rode a virtual roller coaster. You ended up vomiting.

Dave laughed for ten minutes straight, your own goofy monotone of "ahahaha oh my god" reflected back at you.

You went to find Mom and Bro in the food court, and Bro just stared while Mom cooed over you and tried not to laugh.

Bro brought you a shirt while you were in the bathroom, an ugly green nightmare with the Funplex logo on it.

You had said, "Oh my god, this is the ugliest thing I've ever seen," with a wild grin, and Bro had smiled, a fragile crack in his impenetrable armor.

"I know," he said, amusement and relief all in two words. "Now clean the fuck up, you've got that shit in your hair." He took your sullied shirt without asking and walked away, and you stood there shirtless in a public bathroom watching him go.

When you got home, he let you change back into your godtier outfit, took the green shirt, and stuffed it under the futon. You remember wanting it back so you could hang it on your wall.

You think about his smile, think about him balling up your white shirt, covered in puke, like it wasn't the most disgusting thing.

Okay. Alright.

You step across the room, step back, and then you lift your hands. You don't have your time tables, but you close your eyes, take a deep breath, and let your place in the universe go.

 

You land with a wobble and a curse, stumbling in the sudden blackness.

It feels like the wind got knocked out of you, armpits pooling with sweat, trapped in the layers of your clothes. Your head spins from vertigo, your eyes straining to the point of pain. You gag, almost puke.

Holy shit, you did it.

Holy fuck you time traveled.

Holy fuck you  _are_ a god.

"Dave?" Bro's voice comes soft from across the room, head lifted off the futon to look at you.

You flinch and step backwards into the door knob, pretend that didn't startle you.

He watches, silent. His hair and face are just barely illuminated from the dull light of the window, shading him in pale gold. Whatever he's thinking, his face is a steady mask, a puzzle you cannot solve.

"Hey," you say awkwardly.

He doesn't answer. There's a fragmented piece of you that is so, so relieved to see him, to see that he's okay, and you don't even move when he shifts, props himself up on his elbow.

"This isn't the bathroom," he says, and suddenly you're six years old, shaking like a leaf and chasing the tails of a nightmare.

You remember thinking it was the first time you saw his eyes, how tired he looked, and how young he must have been. How it was the last time he let you climb into bed with him, how you fell asleep clinging to his shirt and woke up cold, and alone, in your still-new bed.

You forget your line, words all gummed up in your throat, and settle on, "Yeah."

He stares at you, amber eyes, face blank, and then carefully, without a word, lifts up the covers for you.

You hesitate. You're sixteen now, and you haven't relied on him for almost as long. But this Bro is okay. Hes alive, he's breathing, and. Well. You're already here, you may as well ride it out.

Padding across the floor, you notice Mom is there, curled on the opposite side of the futon, clutching at Bro's stolen pillow like her life depends on it.

He scooches back to leave you a wide berth as you settle in, and you tuck your elbow behind your head in lieu of a pillow.

Bro curves the blanket over you without so much as touching you, and you try not to smile as Mom rolls over and wraps half her body around him.

"Is she like this every night?" you whisper.

He nods, rolls his shoulder to try and dislodge her. "Pretty much. God forbid I try'n get up to piss."

"Dirk is like that too, but. Um." You shift uncomfortably at the face he makes when you say his name. "Not that we. Share. Or cuddle. Or whatever. Anymore, I mean."

He stares at you and you feel bare and uncomfortable. You think this is a mistake. You did it, you traveled. You don't need to stay here.

"You were like that too."

You try to hide how you jump, but you know he saw it. "What?"

Bro rolls his shoulder again. Mom just snores louder. "When you were a baby. Fucking strongest grip I ever saw. Sometimes I couldn't even get you to let go when I had to go to work. You almost broke my finger one time."

You don't know what to say to that.

"It was a long time ago," he says, like he can read your mind. "So what's up. Sister hoggin' the bed again?"

Haha, he means Rose. "Are you intentionally avoiding saying her name?" He makes a face and you laugh. "It's not that weird."

"It's not really. What I would have chosen. As a name, I guess."

"Did  _you_  choose?"

He raises his eyebrows. "Is that a serious question?"

You shrug, suddenly self-conscious.

It's quiet, and you memorize the shape of his nose in the dark, the shade of scruff that scrapes along his chin.

"Yes," he says after a little while.

You give a start. "What?"

He coughs softly, eyes flicking to yours. "I named you."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Cool."

"Mmhm."

Mom snorts, hand worming around and sneaking its way under his shirt. The look on his face is all Dirk, teeth grit as he gently removes her. You muffle a laugh.

"Yeah, yeah, yuck it up," he mutters, but he's chewing on a smile.

"She's really your only friend, huh?" you whisper.

He frowns. "What gave it away?"

"I've never seen you tolerate anyone like that before. Shit, you wouldn't even let me sleep with you."

"I didn't give up my room for you to follow me in here," he huffs softly. Trying to keep his voice down. "It took me three months to get you to stop sneaking in every night. Lord, you fucking cried." He sighs out and his breath is plain black coffee, peppermint toothpaste. "And here you are again."

"Yeah," you say. You stare at his eyes, his hair, the smooth, sharp arch of his cheekbones, the only parts of him highlighted by the street lights, and think of something to say. You can't tell him why you're here, can't tell him what happened. The burden of time travel. You can't tell him to be more careful, to take care of himself, or move the futon.

"I called her," he says suddenly.

"What?" you all but squeak.

He shifts, pulls the covers over you a little more when Mom rolls the opposite way, dragging them with her. "Your mom. Told her what was up. That we weren't doin' so hot."

"Oh. I thought that Rose was maybe exaggerating that," you say. Try not to sound surprised.

"Yeah, well," he yawns. "Rox was never really one to turn down someone in need. Came right away, didn't she?"

"Yeah." You smile. "She's cool. Like, having a mom and stuff. It's really cool."

"Thought you might like that," he murmurs, eyes half-lidded, smile a little sloppy. He's falling asleep, you think.

You close your eyes. You can't sleep here, you know that. You're still a little shaky, feel like your world is trying to tilt sideways.

"Bad dreams?" Bro's voice is low, soft, like the roll of distant thunder, and you open your eyes, see concern painted on his face. It's so foreign to you, and yet you see it in such increasing volume lately.

You inhale, curl a hand into the blankets. "Something like that."

"S'okay to be afraid sometimes," he says.

"Never thought I'd hear you say that." You kick him experimentally under the blanket, and he gives you an unimpressed look. Well, fuck him. You're valid.

He sighs, and it's like you watch all the fight go out of him. "I'm trying to be better about that. Roxy's orders."

And that. Well, okay. You knew his sudden mellowing had something to do with Cal, maybe something to do with popping back to life, and you're really fucking grateful for that, you are. But it's almost amusing, thinking about any Roxy essentially laying a hand on any Dirk's arm and saying, _"calm down, bud."_

"I think you're nicer to Dirk than you are to either of us," is what you say.

Bro wipes a hand across his face, shakes out some of the sleep. "That ain't true. He just keeps finding me at the wrong moments." He looks at you, looks away. "And he isn't. Afraid of me."

Shit. He's got your number. "Yeah, well," you mumble, press your face into your arm. "I don't want to be."

You jump when his fingers brush your forehead, shift a clump of hair away from your eyes. "You're sweatin', kiddo. You sure you're alright?"

"Still feeling bad from earlier," you say, and it's not really a lie, he just doesn't know which day you mean.

"You sure did make a fucking scene." But there's amusement in his voice. "Had to throw away your shirt. Let's hope some poor sadsack didn't have to touch it later."

"Sorry," you say, and feel lame.

His fingers are rough on your skin, and you shiver, bite back against the sting in your eyes. "Don't apologize. S'okay."

"Bro, you're not dying again are you?" you blurt, all in one rush. "I mean. Not right now, obviously. Obviously you're totally fine and if something was up you'd tell me. Or Dave. Or someone. If you thought that you weren't okay. Because emotionally speaking I don't think I can handle it again. Not that I seemed that shocked when it happened, obviously. Cool kids don't cry and all that. I'm just saying, some of us would be real fucking disappointed if you kicked it. And stuff."

"Jesus Christ," is all he says, and you freeze when he cups the back of your neck, pulls you close enough to bonk your foreheads together. "No, Dave. I ain't fucking dying again." He thinks for a moment. "Probably."

That startles a laugh out of you. He and Dirk really are cut from the same damn cloth. "Okay," you say weakly. "I'll take that."

"Mm," he says, and you can tell he's falling asleep again. Dave has slept next to Bro for two outta three months here, and you have never been jealous of him. But to see Bro here, so human, with his slow blinking eyes and long steady breaths, the rough pad of his thumb running along the knobs of your vertebrae, you feel almost... sad.

"I'm not gonna let you die again," you tell him.

"Okay," he drawls, closes his eyes. He clearly thinks you're full of absolute shit. "I appreciate that."

And then you do let him fall asleep. He deserves it, you guess, putting up with you, putting up with Mom. His breath evens out, his hand going limp, and you wriggle out of the blankets, take a quick look around the living room, and head to the roof.

  
[<== Be the Other Other Dave Again](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16626638/chapters/39462814)

 

You wait until Roxy drags Rose off to bed by the hand, both of them looking after you with concern. You give a weak smile, a pathetic wave. You're coming, you're fine, just give you a minute.

When the door closes you take a deep breath in the silence, flash to the kitchen, and puke in the sink.

You rest there, forehead on the cool metal, water splashing up from bottom, drenching your bangs. You pull up pesterchum on your shades, send out a quick set of messages before slumping back into the living room to wait for Dirk and Dave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everything is okay!


	13. spark of life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sodajerk's confidante makes her debut  
> you have always been a little bit in love with the idea of being her friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it is all uphill from here  
> probably! thanks for sticking with me for the #drama  
> ps i wrote most of this at 4 am so if there's errors, please feel free to tell me!

You do not complain when Mom rents a car, when she drives to the airport and you have to sit in the backseat, even though it makes you ultra nauseous, and you aren't strong enough to go inside the crowded mall. (She laughs at you, cuffs the top of your head affectionately. "Just the same," she says, and she leaves you loitering by the garage, pacing the rows of cars like a caged animal.)

Roxy and Dave go in your stead, and when you see them crossing the lot, Roxy on one arm, Dave preening on the other, you cannot help yourself.

You flash forward, scoop Jane up from between them, and spin her around like it's a romcom and this is your last big chance to film.

She hoots and hollers and eventually begs, Dirk, please, seriously, please, oh good golly Jesus put her down, and you do, and you cup her face, and your own feels like it might snap in half.

"Hi," you breathe, and she's so beautiful, so round and shiny and sleep-tousled, you feel like you might cry.

"Oh jeez, Dirk, you need to get out of this sun," she says, wiping the sweat from your brow and fanning her own face. "You're going bonkers out here, I think. It's much too hot for humans here, I don't know how you stand it!"

"Yeah, if by 'bonkers' you're referring to how batshit insane he's been all morning waiting for you," Dave snorts, but he hauls Jane's luggage with zero complaint, parks it dutifully in Mom's trunk without being told, like the perfect fucking knight he is.

"I wouldn't worry too much," Roxy says, coming up behind Jane and squeezing the three of you together in a big hug. "I think he's the perfect amount of out of his mind crazy for our favorite gal pal, here!"

You are not huge on physical affection from anyone who is not (a) Dave or Roxy, but you think that circle has officially widened to Jane, because you feel yourself practically melt against her, bowed around her tiny, soft form as you inhale the scent of sugar cookies.

"Missed you," you murmur into her hair, and she laughs again, a soft "hoo hoo hoo."

She rubs at your back in an utterly sincere way. "I've missed you too, dear Mr. Strider. Now, let's get us back home so you can give me a tour of your infamous apartment, and I can attempt to relearn -no pun intended - life-saving magicks in less than a day!"

"If anyone can do it," you tell her, escorting her hand in hand with Roxy to Mom's car, where she and Jane's dad now stand, talking right up, "it'll be you."

God Jane's Dad is still pretty hot, you kinda forgot, and Roxy only has to weakly call him "MR. CROCKER" three times before Mom finally takes the hint; You  _have_ heard that they look very similar. You wonder, watching the adult version of your friend trip over herself in front of him, how similar they must really be.

The ride home is a little easier, with all of you squeezed in the back, too busy listening to Jane catch you up to worry about the motion of the car under your feet.

"John so wanted to come," she tells Dave. "I've never had to deal with the soul-crushed face of a son who isn't actually my son before. It was quite a bit like being a mother, I must say."

"Did you tell him it isn't a leisure trip?" you ask, but you squeeze Dave's shoulder gently, because you know he must miss John, too.

"I think he was just disappointed that he can't really help," she says, offers Dave a little hand pat, which you watch him take much too well. "But it's not like you won't visit, of course! After all this, I mean. I was very much hoping to host something of a get together before the school year starts again!"

"Jade 'n Jakey are gonna come all the way to the mainland next month, right?" Roxy says, but she's looking at you.

You look at Jane. She has her head tucked down, her fingers curled around each other. She didn't. She didn't tell you that. "Jane," you start.

"Later, please," she squeaks, and the misery there is what stops you.

Right. She's right. Maybe not in the car, squished illegally in the back without seat belts and Momlonde and Jane's dad listening in. Right.

  
Her dad promises to take care of all the hotel arrangements so that Mom can drop the three of you off at the apartment, though she makes it very clear she will be right back, and not to do anything weird or burn the place down.

"Cross my heart," Dave says, but he doesn't, and Mom just laughs, gives him a sideways hug. You don't mention how he goes pink in the face, just sigh and drag them both up the building front.

"Let's just get this over with."

Jane did not fly all the way from Washington to look at your messy apartment, but you still feel self-conscious, like it's the first time she's seeing it, although technically that's untrue.

She runs a hand along Bro's computer desk, over the multitude of holes where his posters were, eyes the stains on the couch judiciously, and eventually wanders into the kitchen. You wince when she opens the fridge, still devoid of shelves and completely barren, and the look she gives you is mortified humor.

"It's broken, anyway," you say, and she sighs.

"Dirk, when will any version of you learn to throw out your broken things?"

"It served a purpose," you say, keeping Dave in your peripherals as you edge forward to close the door. "It's just done doing that now."

Jane rolls her eyes and ducks under your arm, snooping in your shelves before you can stop her. She opens the cupboard, stares, and then closes it. "You've been here since April," she says, slowly.

"We've been busy," you offer.

"Hmm," she says, but turns around, looking over your shoulder, and her gaze softens. "You must be the Dave I've heard so much about."

You could kiss DS for his timing, and rolling your head back, there he is, frozen halfway across the living room, hands on his wheels, looking like he's been caught doing something he ought not be doing.

Which. Alright, now.

Given that his face is quite red, you have a feeling that you did, in fact, catch him doing something he ought not be doing.

"Eyes up top, Strider," Roxy drawls, before you can speak, and he splutters.

"I wasn't looking at. Anything. Uh, I mean. Obviously I was looking at her and thinking 'huh that must be Jane, John's hot Mom.' I mean just mom. Well not his mom I guess like you're not my mom, but in the sense you actually are. Uh." He clears his throat.

Jane puts her hands on her cheeks to hide the blotchy blush that starts spreading. God, your life is ridiculous. Someone help these poor kids. "Gosh, you Striders and your weird sense of humor and irony I'll never understand."

"Jane," you say, putting an arm around her shoulders, maintaining careful eye contact with Davesprite, "Dave, my beloved brother. Who I love. So much. Dave, Jane. My best friend." You tighten your grasp. "Who I would both die, and also kill for."

"Jesus, we get it, but quit hoggin' her, already," Dave snorts, striding forward and snaking his way in between you and her. "M'lady, our shit hole bedroom awaits." And with a light jostle to shake you loose, he's suddenly halfway across the room, dragging Jane towards your room and grinning like a shitty little kid.

"Don't use your powers for evil," DS says, but he doesn't look impressed, rolling after them hesitantly.

"I'll use my powers for whatever I want, considering I'm the only one who has them," Dave says dryly.

Roxy shimmies up to where you stand frozen in the kitchen. "You know he's just messin' around right? He don't mean nothing by it."

"I know," you say. You do. You think you do. I mean, of course. Jesus. "I just don't..."

"Don't want her precious maiden heart to break, I know." She pats you on the chest gently and then loops her arm around yours. "Come on, let's go watch our not-kids trip all over themselves in front of a hot babe. It'll be cathartic."

"It will fucking not," you all but laugh, but she's insistent, and you let her pull you along so she can make fun of Rose before she can compose herself entirely.

It kind of is, honestly, watching Jane walking around, absently picking up things up off the floor and moving them to the laundry as she talks to them, Dave looking now quite embarrassed by the room, and Rose curled up in the corner holding a book and trying not to look at her.

"I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to learn how to heal people again," Jane is saying when you enter. "I didn't even do it consciously the first time, and I very much doubt that adrenaline and a pressured situation will do anything other than make me cry." She laughs, a little weakly.

Wow, you really need to sit down with her and Roxy and have A Talk. You think, absently, that maybe they are the ones who need to have a talk with you, because you're definitely doing it again. You need to stop trying to control the situation just because someone is uncomfortable. You just don't know how.

"I don't think anyone's gonna ask you to cry, Jesus, Crocker," Dave says, and he looks like he wants to stop her, but he doesn't know how.

"Nah, but how the fuck are we supposed to turn her into Nurse fuckin' Joy without. Without some kind of trigger?" Davesprite chews on the inside of his lip.

You shrug. "Could always throw one of us down the stairs and see if Jane can heal them."

"No, we fucking cannot," Roxy says quickly, smacking at you. "Nobody is getting seriously hurt here!"

"Someone technically already is," Rose says, very quietly, and that's enough to shut you all up.

It has been only three days since. Since the seizure. Davesprite has finally gotten to see Bro, all sequestered off in his little hospital room. You remember the smell of antiseptic, the sting of alcohol in your nose, and suppress a shudder. You can't bring yourself to go back there. You just can't.

"I will try, you know," Jane says, and she comes to stand before both Daves, takes their hands and gives a hardy squeeze. "Not a single Dirk is going to die on this Maid's watch. You can bet your buttons on that, alright?"

"Sometimes, I have trouble believing you're real, Jane Crocker," Rose sighs, giving her a watery smile when Jane reaches out to take hers next.

  
Mom does come to collect you, not too long after that. She's been absolutely adamant about you three sleeping in the hotel instead of the apartment, which mildly rakes the skin off your very stubborn back.

It isn't that you particularly enjoy the idea of sleeping in a place where you almost watched your alternate self die (and where you have technically died now, twice over). It is more that the idea of sleeping in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room, is so completely foreign to you that the idea of doing so cripples you with fear you can neither express nor completely mask.

Dave and DS are trying, they really fucking are, piling you high in a sick ass blanket fort, clinging on either side of you in a suffocating, if somewhat endearing, way. You know they are both hurting, and that you are not the person they really want to see, or maybe you just think that way because you enjoy wallowing, but you are trying for them. It is making you, despite best efforts, considerably cranky.

You have taken to pacing the halls of the fourteenth floor, from one end to the other and back again, counting doors, the distance between exits, and where the nearest fire extinguisher is. You have learned to avoid the elevators if you don't want to talk to anyone, and instead climb the last few flights that lead to the roof on an almost nightly basis.

Jane's stay, quite unfortunately for you, is a quarter inch screw in the immaculate cogs of your routine processes.

You cannot say no to a sleepover, not with the shine in her eyes, the curl of her lip over too big teeth. Your friends have always been like that with you, all open expressions and a kindness you never entirely felt you deserved. It was like no matter how hard you tried, a part of you was shut off from the rest of the functioning fucking public and you were Dirk Strider, boy loser and socially crippled stone-face.

Dave looks at DS when you tell them, together, that you're going to spend the night in Jane's room. You grab Dave's hand, because you don't know how to comfort yet, and because it molds so well to yours, and offer him a squeeze of apology.

"Just for tonight," you tell him, and then both of them.

Davesprite still has this way of looking at you like he doesn't entirely trust you, like you might have something you are holding back from him, but you cannot blame him, really. Given your past record, and your general caginess when it comes to. Well most things, you reckon. His suspicion is well-deserved, if somewhat painful for you.

"I think we can handle one night not having to essentially hog tie you to a mattress pad to keep you from shaking your foot so hard the floor vibrates," he drawls, and he sounds bored, but there is a kindness to the smile at the corner of his mouth.

"I trust Rose will make an acceptable substitute for my somewhat long-winded way of speaking," you say, dragging up your Designated Hotel Blankie off the floor. "Of course, given her rather esoteric topics of choice and, in general, lack of empathy when it comes to say, grilling the fuck outta both of you, you might want to just have a boys only night."

"With a z!" Roxy shouts from the hall.

"With a z," you amend.

"I would take offense to that," Rose says from where she sits on the other bed, "but given my lack of private time due in part to so many Striders these past few weeks, I am willing to let it slide."

You smile at her in thanks. She'll watch them, even if she won't admit it to you, and you follow Roxy out quietly, shut the door soft so you don't wake up the other hotel guests.

"It's kinda almost perfect, huh?" Roxy whispers on your way up. She humors you when you head for the stairs, even with the juggling act the two of you are doing. "Like when we first started the session and stuff."

You remember immediately, that first sleepover on Jane's planet. How she cooked a cake for all of you even though it was her birthday, how you pinned blankets over the windows so that you could pretend it was actually night time. You remember the gut pulling anxiety of talking to them all the first time, and the patient friendliness you were handed in return. You think about the earnest look on Jake's face, the first time he asked if he might have a kiss, and then you clamp down on that immediately.

Nope.

Not going back there.

"Yep," you say instead, hauling open the heavy stairwell door for her.

Jane is waiting outside her room, holding her phone and texting someone with a morose look on her face. When the door gives a clunk, alerting you to her presence, the two of you are immediately treated to the comedy routine of watching her squeak in surprise and almost throw her phone, grapple for it, and ultimately drop it so that it bounces down the hall.

"Oh, fiddle faddle," she mutters, but you touch her shoulder gently, trot over to pick it up. You may not be a nasty excuse for a human being like Dave, but you're still a fucking prince.

You surreptitiously note that the pesterchum window is all in blues, and then turn off the screen and return it to her hand.

She gives you a small smile and then turns it up to one hundred as she beams at Roxy. "Ready? Dad let me have an adjoining room, so we'll have some privacy, at least." She looks around briefly, like she's expecting someone to pop up behind you. "Rose and the Daves didn't want to tag along tonight?"

"Please, Janey, this is a big kids sleepover!" Roxy nudges past her into the room, hip bumping you as she goes. "No younger sibbies invited!"

"Technically, we are the same exact age," you point out, following.

"Omfg Dirk, don't ruin my modern day life fantasy. No younger siblings allowed, that's that." She throws her blankets on one bed, and then herself.

You share a look with Jane, and she rolls her eyes, but she's smiling. _'Let's just go with it.'_

"So what's the first order of business?" you say, dropping everything in a pile in the middle of the floor. You grab the remote and the TV menu. "Food service? Maybe a lovely five dollar water to accompany our mac and cheese?"

"I think the first order of any successful business is always to make a sick fucking fort," Roxy says, but she doesn't wait for you or Jane to start ripping the bed apart.

You laugh softly when they roll you in between the beds, build the fort around you while you scramble from the inside to provide integral support and keep all the sheets afloat. When you are done, it is at least twenty times uglier than the one that Dave and DS made, but you don't care to change that, and Jane and Roxy crawl in so that you're on the  outside edge, with Jane in the middle, and if you really tried, you could probably worm under the bed and escape. These two really are the fucking best.

You can just barely see the TV from your position but it doesn't bother you, and it's the price you pay for being like a foot taller anyway. At least they can see.

"It really has been awhile, huh?" Jane whispers, when you're watching the Squiddles and eating pilfered chips from the vending machine. Who even know they'd make it through the wormhole? Incredible. "Since we've all been together."

"But we're not all together," Roxy slurs, soft and sleepy against Jane's shirt. "S'not the same without Jake."

And she's right, but. You and Jane look at each other, matching discomfort and identical unease.

"It's just complicated, Rox," you say gently, reach over Jane to pull a piece of hair away from her mouth.

"I know," she says, and her eyes crack open to frown at you. "But I'm gettin' real tired of the Jake n Pony show featuring Roxy and a dead fucking horse. If he asks me one more time if we fuckin' hate him, Dirk? My brain will explode."

"We don't hate him," Jane says, and her mouth is pulling all kinds of sour faces. You and Roxy both reach out to smooth her locks. "It's just, just complicated. And oh, how I wish I could take back all those silly things I said while holding that lollipop, and then all the absolutely cruel things I said while under the influence of that horrible woman. Even Jake didn't deserve that."

Roxy laughs, low and a little morbid. "Okey, maybe we don't word it like that, but you're right. We were all kinda messed up though, way bigger and sillier than our kid-kids ever got to be."

"I didn't need a piece of candy or a tiara to be cruel," you say, and bury your face in Jane's hair to hide your distress. "I was just straight up a fucking jackass."

"Maybe a little ways," Roxy says, and you feel the familiar _pat pat_ of her hand on your arm. "But that doesn't mean you're beyond help! That's what friends r for, Dirkleton. We look out for each other, and we forgive each other's hella fucked up mistakes."

You hum, don't dislodge yourself from your dark hair prison. She's right, to a point. You think about Bro on the roof, taking a drag off his cigarette, his frustration for Rose's mom painted all over his face. You change the subject. "Jane. In the car. You said that Jake and Jade were coming to the mainland?" Okay, you only kind of change the subject.

You feel her freeze against you, and feel Roxy's hand trace the side of her face, across to wear your arm wraps around her stomach.

"Jaaaaane," she says, and it's pseudo-strict, the way you've heard Mom call to Rose and Dave on multiple occasions.

"It's not such a big deal," she says, though it sounds like it is. "Jade's grandfather is bringing all the. The documents? To sign? And then I'll be the, the heiress again..."

Okay, something is very obviously wrong here, and you prop yourself up on your elbow to get a better look at her. And yup, just as you suspected, there's a wobbly chin, big glassy blue eyes, and you, Dirk Strider, do not fucking know what to do when a girl cries. "Hey, hey, no, let's not," you try, panicked and choking. You move her hands away from her face as she attempts to hide. "C'mon, Janey, talk to us here. What's wrong? Really wrong."

"What if I mess up," she whispers. "What if I do something wrong or she comes back and I'm just her pawn again? What if I can't stop her?"

"She's dead," Roxy shushes, and she sits up too, petting Jane's face and her arms, trying to rub warmth back into her. "She's dead and fuckin' gone and she ain't never comin back, okay? Would Dirk and I be here otherwise? Probably not goddamn who knows, but she's gone, Janey, it's just you and your Nanna and you won, okay? We won."

"I really wanted to meet Poppop," she hiccups, and your heart aches in your chest. You get it. You get it all too fucking well.

"I know, Crocker," you soothe, keep your voice low, rub the back of your hand along her side. "I know. We did, too. Woulda loved to meet old man John. Bet he was a fucking riot, huh? With the corny old man jokes or whatever."

"It is so clear you never watched Night Court," Jane giggles through her hands, which she's using to cover her face again. "But I appreciate the sentiment, Strider. And equally, I would have liked to meet your brother, even if his movies were all pretty much terrible."

"Do  _not_ tell Dave that," you whisper, but you're smiling. "It'd gut him to know another Crockbert thinks his sense of humor is atrocious."

"John doesn't think he's atrocious at all," Jane says, wiping her eyes clear. "He just likes messing with people. You two would get along quite well, I think."

You look at Roxy for confirmation, and she's grinning real big. "Kid's totes hilarious tbh. And he's a cutie, besides."

"Roxy noooo!" Jane smacks at her leg lightly. "Please not this again!"

Roxy rolls her eyes for your benefit, but she wiggles her eyebrows, too. She goes back to petting Jane's hair. "Don't worry, Janey. Dirk and I will come to Washington and support u. Right Dirk?"

"Uh," you say, because the idea of seeing Jake again terrifies you, and you've never ridden an airplane before. Jane peeks up from between her fingers, biting her lip, eyes red around the edges, and you fucking cave like a castle made of sand. "Yeah. Yeah, I'd like that."

"Family road trip!" is Roxy's take away, and she wraps her arms around both of you tight enough to choke.

You aren't sure who moves first when you hear the knock on the door, but in between point A and point B, you and Jane crack heads, and you feel a blistering pain shoot through your nose, followed by the metallic smell of blood.

"Uh-oh," Roxy whispers, but Jane just outright curses, has a fucking hanky in hand which she presses into yours before hurrying to the door (it is just Dad, because of course it is, and he is just making sure everything is okay, he heard shouting, and wants to know if you need anything, because of course he does).

"Oh shit, Jesus Christmas, fuck," Jane says as soon as the door has closed again, and she's dragging you into the bathroom, tipping your head forward over the sink. "Oh Dirk, I'm so sorry!"

"Y'got a hard fucking head, Crocker," you manage, splashing some water up into your nose. "As I should have expected from a stalwart lady such as yourself."

"Dirk, please stop talking," she sighs, and then she herds you up, sits you on the closed toilet lid. The bite of her lip is not promising. "Oh, jeez."

"Is it broken?" Roxy is hovering in the doorway, looking a bit unsure of what to do. "Should I get Momlonde in here?"

"I don't... know," Jane says, hesitant.

"S'fine if it's broken," you shrug, raise your hands to the right height. "I can set it -"

"No!" she yelps, horrified, batting your hands away.

You frown, furrow your brow. What is the problem? "Jane," you try, "it's fine. I've set my own nose before. It'll only hurt for a second -"

"No," she says, firmer, and when her eyes soften, there's that pity, the sadness you saw in her face the first time she visited your planet, the first time she saw Roxy's house. It doesn't sit well in your stomach, and you shift uncomfortably to look away. "Hey, no, I don't mean it like -" She inhales through her nose, sighs out her mouth. Wow, what a show off. "Let me try to. Well." She wiggles her fingers, offers a smile. "What's better practice, right?"

"Oh," you say. Blink. Yeah. "Yeah, fuck yeah. Get to it, Crocker. Magic me a straight fucking nose."

"Okay," she says, all steely determination and serious face. "Close your eyes. Let me see if I can just..."

God help you, you have never trusted anyone in your life the way a normal human being should, but you do as you're told and close your eyes.

It's silent a moment, and then you feel a soft little peck against your nose, with the accompanying _"smooch"_ sound.

Your eyes fly open to the sound of Roxy's howls of laughter, and Jane grinning from ear to ear.

"Sorry," she says. "I've just always wanted to catch you off guard like that."

You are genuinely dumbfounded for a moment. "I," you say, and then stop. Feel your ears start to burn.

If it was anyone else, you think, you would be absolutely livid. But these two ladies have you wrapped so tightly around their collective finger that you don't think you'd even notice bending over backwards for them.

Roxy is still snickering, and you try not to think about the fact that she is holding her phone to her chest while Jane puts her thumbs on either side of your nose.

"Okay," Jane says, and this time when she breathes out, you actually see her hands go blue.

It's almost startling, the suddenness with which it comes on, and you flinch, have to bite back against your automatic desire to pull out your strife specibus. It's like peppermint on your tongue, frost across your teeth, and the smell of menthol so overwhelming you almost gag, a flare of white-hot pain as your nose cartilage snaps back like elastic.

"Holy fuck, Jane," Roxy says.

"Holy shit," Jane says.

"Ow, my nose," you say.

 

"You don't have to come with," Jane tells you on the way to the hospital. You're sitting in Bro's truck, just you, Dave, and Jane, and your hands are fucking shaking.

"I think he _does_ have to come with," Dave says, and you mask a wince as he shifts too early and you hear the engine, in the back of your head, die a little bit more. "He's my emotional support Dirk. I need him."

"Dave," Jane says delicately.

"Jane," Dave returns.

"Are you sure you know how to drive?"

"Well now that's just fucking rude," he says, but you can see the pinch in his face as he turns slowly into the parking garage. "I am a certified time god, I don't need a license."

"I'm pretty sure you do, bro," you say, but you are trying so hard to keep your stomach from doing backflips that you don't really have time to critique his driving skills.

"Hey, Mom said I could," he huffs, hunches over the wheel a little. You are almost 80% sure, in this moment, that he loves this car more than you.

He's right, besides. Mom  _did_ say he could, said she'd be right behind him if anything happened. You aren't entirely sure why Jane agreed to right with you.

"Hey," she murmurs, and you look down at your hands to see them gripping your knees, covered in sweat, and suddenly you know exactly why. "It's going to be okay, Dirk." Her eyes are calm as the ocean blue, gaze steady and steadfast. "I'm going to help him."

You can't find the right words, you don't know how to say thank you, with your heart in your ears and slamming into your chest like it's trying to escape. So you nod, and you look down at your lap, and you breathe through your unbroken nose.

  
Bro's hospital room is as quiet as it's ever been, the steady sound of beeping machines, the muffled voices and footsteps just outside.

Jane moves fast, because you have to, because it could go wrong, and it feels wrong, watching her now, bow over this meaner, bigger version of yourself.

Bro, for his part, doesn't wake up until she reaches out to touch him, and even half-speed, half-asleep, he stops her in her tracks. "Egbert?" he slurs, squints like the light hurts.

"No sir, Mr. Strider," Jane says, gentle as anything. "Just Jane. I'm here to help, if you'll let me."

He stares at her, eyes drooping like he's fighting to keep them open, and then he shrugs, closes them and rolls his head away. "Suit yourself."

When Jane touches him, Bro's entire body goes icicle blue, his skin otherworldly and glowing like a fucking ghost. It's unsettling. He lets out a loud hiss, hunches in on himself, but that's all you see before she's shifting away and Bro is lying there, looking dead as a doornail, curled into a ball as tight as he can go.

"Well?" you ask, hesitant to touch her.

Jane shudders, wraps her arms around herself. She looks pale, a little sweaty. "I, I think it worked? I could see it all, though, Jiminy Christmas, what a nightmare."

"I take offense to that," Bro says, weak but crystal clear. "Head hurts like a motherfucker, though. Christ, this is worse than the Macy's holiday parade circa 1994."

You have absolutely zero idea what that means, but have you never, ever been more relieved to hear him speak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm love Jane so much I would die for her. Thank you to all the commenters and people leaving kudos, I treasure each and every one and read them to myself five times at least haha


	14. catharsis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davesprite tries to justify his burdens. Bro finally owns up. Forgiveness is not a thing to be given freely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for open discussion of past abuse, hair trigger anger and aggression, and some unhealthy coping. this is it, boys. we've made it this far.

You do not miss the hotel. You thought you would, and maybe part of you definitely does. The fresh air, the free pool, the smell of clean laundry. You even appreciated the wider halls, the fact that you never had to clean, the unfailing elevator, and the trustworthy AC.

But rolling back into your shitty apartment is like a breath of well-deserved Dorito dust, and though you are careful to sidle to the opposite side of the futon, you are, pretty dramatically, happy to be home.

Bro drags your bags back in (Mom offered and his only response was "nah") and dumps them by the door. He didn't talk much on the way home, just stared at the back of Jane's head a lot and winced every time Dave, in front of Mom's car, stalled the truck a little bit. He comes to stand by his bed, and for a moment you imagine he's not all there. He looks the stain. Looks at you. Back at the stain. Then he says, voice hollow and completely unimpressed, "You just left the blood to soak in there, huh."

You freeze halfway out of your chair, give him what you hope is an appropriately sheepish look. "My legs don't work, Bro."

"I didn't realize crippled legs prevented your arms from working," he snorts. Sighs, drops his head. "Alright."

You fold yourself onto the mattress, carefully quiet as he moves around the apartment. "I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to say crippled," you tell him, when he's bent over under the cupboard looking for the bleach.

"And I'm pretty sure leaving my apartment to a bunch of grubby teenagers was the worst mistake I ever made."

"That is literally so far from fucking true, and I definitely shouldn't have to tell you that," you say, with more balls than you have the right to.

Bro pauses in the kitchen, holding a bottle of cleaner and a roll of paper towels. "Dave," he says, but there's not vitriol in it, and he gives up before he starts. He's not in the mood for banter right now, you guess.

You grab your phone and drag it up to your face so he doesn't see you watching him.

It does seem like he's okay, you guess, or at least better than he was ('pretty much dead' isn't really much of a bottom line, though).

TG: hey man everything cool over there  
TG: i mean i know you just got home im not saying every single thing is gonna go to shit right away i mean definitely not because jane just fixed bro and for him to die right away would be kinda fucked up  
TG: just got back to the hotel btw we should be back tomorrow  
TG: well maybe idk mom might let dirk and i have our own room for a bit which is cool because fuck yeah ac  
TG: and also because rooming with a bunch of flighty broads is exhausting  
TG: i know we dont talk about it but the energy between rose and mom gets really fucking stressful and thats saying something  
TG: considering who we spent the past thirteen years with i mean  
TG: do you even get these messages  
TG: like  
TG: when i message you does it just look like im talking to myself  
TG: am i just sending these messages out into the abyss to be taken by the gods in the dark  
TG: i dont know about every time but im definitely seeing them this time  
TG: so whats up  
TG: oh  
TG: hey  
TG: hey  
TG: uh  
TG: yeah anyway is he cool  
TG: bro i mean  
TG: dude you literally saw him less than twenty minutes ago  
TG: yeah  
TG: but  
TG: shut up  
TG: hes fine i think  
TG: everything seems to be back to where its supposed to  
TG: blood and brain wise i mean  
TG: hes ignoring me anyway idk i tried bantering with him you know how sometimes hell go for a good banter  
TG: classic  
TG: right  
TG: but i think hes just tired right now

Bro is actually leering at you over the top of his shades while he cleans, look so pointed it may as well be a throwing star.

TG: actually right now hes cleaning the blood off the futon and looking at me  
TG: he is not happy dude  
TG: aw bro come on man hes the one who fucking bled everywhere in the first place  
TG: aint like the futons never seen blood sport before  
TG: he mostly just thinks were gross i think  
TG: tell him fuck him hes gross  
TG: no fucking way you pester him yourself  
TG: no just tell him  
TG: do it if hes tired he probably wont beat your ass  
TG: i am making a roxy slashy face right fucking now dave  
TG: i double dave dare you  
TG: look what roxy is doing to me man i just made a pun like some kind of lalonde  
TG: cmon do it for me 

You sigh, roll you eyes, and peek up at Bro.

He's dabbing at the fabric now, pulling away, dabbing more. He notices you. Scowls. "What."

"Dave says  _you're_ gross," you tell him because you're not a coward.

(Okay maybe you are a little bit.)

Bro's eyebrows shoot up into his hairline, and he gives a breathy little almost-laugh that makes you herniate. "Christ, both of you are killing me," he mutters, goes to rub at his eyes.

"Chemicals!" you shout, like an idiot. His look says as much. "Quit rubbing your fucking eyes," you tell him.

"Can't help it," he grunts, climbing to his feet and heading back to the kitchen. "Shit itches." He looks at you as he flips the tap, as he shoves his hands under the water, as he lathers with soap.

"I get it," you groan. "I'm not your mom, yadda yadda, fuck you."

TG: did you do it  
TG: yeah he laughed  
TG: yo he did what 

"Dave," he says again, and this time when he comes back, he sits right next to you on the futon. This cannot be good. You are getting red alert dad vibes over here. He hesitates, pauses to take off his shoes. His fucking socks don't match again, and you are so fucking baffled because honestly? You don't even know where he keeps his clothes. "You don't have to keep hovering over me like a hen in a nest. It's not your job."

Uh. "Uh," you say. Shift so that your back is against the arm of the futon. "I know. I mean. Fuck, I'm not hovering. Not really?" You twist your fingers around each other nervously. "Well maybe a little, but it's only cuz I promised them I'd watch you, you know, make sure you don't do dumb idiot shit or whatever. Someone's gotta make sure you don't die, and I guess since I'm the only one who's seen you kick it before, I'd be the best judge of that."

Bro sighs through his nose, takes off his shades, and puts them in his polo. Massages the bridge of his nose. "Regardless of the fact that I am - debatably, I reckon, given my track record - an adult, you know I don't know what to say when you say shit like that, right?"

"I don't know," you say weakly, shrug. Look down at your phone again.

TG: dave  
TG: dave come on  
TG: dude you cant just drop mad truth bombs vis a vis bro laughing like a person and then disappear  
TG: sorry  
TG: i think im getting lectured right now  
TG: whoa  
TG: about what 

Bro stares at you, and you decide he does look a better, circles under his eyes less prominent, little red indents on his nose from his glasses, giving you this indiscernible expression that you just can't parse. Jane did a good job, bringing your brother back (okay Christ he wasn't _dead_ ). You wonder if he should still be taking his AEDs, and decide it's probably better he does, just in case.

TG: its kind of hard to explain  
TG: he thinks i care too much or something i dont know  
TG: hes so fucking frustrating i dont know what he wants from us  
TG: from me

"You should sleep in your own room tonight," he says, suddenly enough that you start.

"What?" And then, catching up, "Oh fuck no, you ain't getting out of watch duty that easy!" You shove your shades up onto your forehead so that he can see how serious you are. So goddamn serious. "You think I'll let you pull that shit your first night back?"

He shrugs. "It's your chance to have the bed to yourself, yeah? It'll be good for you, to get some privacy, maybe get some proper sleep."

"I sleep just fine out here," you huff, although your spine protests this. The mattress is old. You definitely need a new one that  _isn't_ covered in Bro's blood stains.

"Kid," he says, and the look he gives you makes it clear he can see right through you. "You ain't a fucking nurse. You're definitely not any use to me as a servant or voyeur. C'mon, you'll be one room away if shit goes sideways. Doesn't take that much energy to get up into that chair now, huh? You'll be there quicker'n a jack rabbit, I trust you."

"Okay," you say, voice strained, "we should probably unpack the fact that you just said you trust me for the first time fucking ever, but how about we focus on the fact that you almost died, and that  _I_ don't fucking trust _you_."

"Dave," he starts.

You laugh, a little hysterical. "I honestly don't know what to fucking do with you, dude. Sometimes you seem so." You gesture to just. All of him. "So the same as you used to be, like a big mean fucking robot that I live with in the place of a guardian. One minute I feel like I'm gonna shit my pants in terror, and the next, you're carrying my dumbass down the stairs, or telling me you died for me, or - or -" Your eyes burn, and you look at him, can't hide the raw emotion that is making its way across your face. "You almost died again," you whisper. "And I couldn't do anything to stop it."

And there it is, there's the rub. It's been on your mind for days, it's all your anxiety, all the tightness in your chest, your sanity circling the drain. Dave is the one who saved him. Not you. You didn't do shit but remember, and for what? You're not a hero, and you never were, and Bro died because of you, and almost died again, and you couldn't do shit. You never do  _anything_.

The panic in Bro's eyes shouldn't be as pathetically comical as it is, but it is, and you laugh again, eyes welling up. "This is so fucking stupid. Every time I do this, I think 'Dave, why you do you fucking bother?' and honestly I don't fucking know. I don't know why I keep blurting all this shit out to you. It's like a soundboard for my own stupidity, echoing back for all eternity into the void, until it reaches the horror terrors and they swallow it and shit it out into dream bubbles or whatever."

Bro finally moves, covering his face with his hands, dragging them down in a wiping motion. He's frustrated, you realize. Well fuck him, welcome to your world twenty-four goddamn seven. He drops them into his lap, curls long fingers over his knees. You watch the veins you can see through his skin, the way the tendons flex when his grip tightens. Restraint.

"Dave," he says, and there is something cruel in his voice, or not cruel, but angry, and you realize you don't know how to tell the difference. "You  _cannot_  keep blaming yourself for my death."

"I didn't say I did," you say, and know exactly how fucking dumb and small it sounds.

"That's fucking bullshit, and you n' I both know it." Bro takes a deep breath, releases it. You curl into yourself. He looks so mad. "I ain't - I'm not the guardian of the year. Hell, I definitely ain't fucking anywhere near the podium, neither, but even I can see plain as goddamn day that you're dwelling hard on this shit. And I don't know how to stop it."

"You _can't_ ," you groan, pull your knees up and bang your head on them. "It's me. I'm the problem. If I had tried harder -"

"So fucking what if you tried harder?" he snaps, and it's the first time Bro has risen his voice to you, really risen it.

"So maybe I coulda..." you press your lips together, furrow your brow. "I don't know. Helped? Been any help at all instead of fucking it all up? What's your fucking problem? I'm trying to apologize to you for letting you die -"

He snorts, rolls his eyes, and it is cruel. He's so angry, so fucking angry. "You think that if, what, I had trained you harder? Made your life even more fucking miserable, that you could have prevented that? Jesus, Dave, he was a fucking monster, twice as bad as I ever got to be. You think if I didn't stand a damn chance, you could have done _anything_?"

You stare at him, mouth open, completely speechless for the first time in your life. You have no idea what to say. Bro has never yelled at you, even when correcting you, tone always even, always sturdy and cold. You've never even heard Dirk yell, and the sound doesn't terrify you so much as render you unable to process what just fucking happened.

Bro seems to realize what he's done, because he sneers, curses under his breath, and then suddenly he's halfway across the room, shoes on, shoving his keys into his pocket and fumbling with a lighter.

"Where are you fucking going?" you croak, and you're scared, and you're hurt, and you don't want him to leave.

"Roof," he grunts. He pulls a cigarette out of somewhere, and it's the first time you've caught him in the act. You're a little baffled by how your brain hones in on the detail, like that's what's fucking important right now. American Spirits. Wow what a fucking hipster. What the fuck.

"Will you come back?"

It's quiet, deadly damn quiet in the apartment, his shoulders bowed, his hand on the doorknob. When he does speak, it's with more surprise, more hesitation than you're used to. "Do you want me to?"

And you. You have to think for a minute, pulse racing, heart staccato in your ears. "I don't really want you to leave at all," you admit, and it sounds lame, even if it is true. The idea of being here alone, in the silence again, is devastating. You think, absently, that you might be really fucking lonely.

Bro exhales, a big gust of air that blows smoke into the apartment, and then he's walking back across the room, half speed, so that you're not left chasing his after image.

"What are you -"

He's swung you over his shoulder before you finish, folded up your chair, and with a hop, skip and a literal step, you're on the roof.

"What the fuck!" You kick at him weakly.

"Can't smoke in the apartment," he says simply, like that solves everything, and the way he sets you down in your chair is twenty times more delicate than you expect from him.

You still land like a bundle of grapes in a grocery store scale.

Bro wanders away from you, across the roof, and you watch him, all predator long legs and strong shoulders that shift through his shirt. He's scary, your older brother. You have never doubted that. And he has never felt so human to you, as he drops onto the edge of the roof in a single fluid motion, like a puppet with the strings cut.

You linger by the door, uncertain. He was so...  _mad_ at you. Or maybe he wasn't, and maybe you're projecting, and both of you are kinda freaked out right now.

Well. He's not running away from you anymore, at least. You wheel quietly over, come to sit next to him. Your palms are sweating, and you still feel a little breathless.

"I'm not actively trying to kill myself, Dave," he says, and all the fight has gone out of him, all the vitriol burned away in a cloud of smoke. "And I know you don't trust me. Honest to Christ, I don't even know if I fucking want you to, but I'm the adult." He looks at you, and his eyes burn into yours. You can see the anger there, trapped under the surface. He is trying so fucking hard, right now, for you.

It terrifies you.

"I am the adult, and if I tell you to back off, you need to back the fuck off."

"I don't want to," you say stubbornly. You don't know why you're fighting this so hard. A few months ago you would have turned tail and run at the first sign of trouble.

"I didn't ask if you wanted to," Bro says, takes a heavy drag. He holds it between his fingers with such ease, and you wonder, uselessly, how long he's smoked. "I told you, as your fucking guardian. What you're doing is unhealthy, and I'm tired of watching you pull these acrobatic fucking pirouettes off the handle to justify the way you're acting right now. I'm sick of it, sick of being responsible for it. Back off, Dave."

"Well you weren't much of a guardian for the past thirteen - fuck, sixteen years," you say, and it comes out in as close to a snarl as you can. "Why should I even listen to you? You can't fucking take care of yourself, that much is goddamn clear. Dirk, Dave, and I have basically been walking around mopping up your shit for months now. I've had to watch you seize more times than I've actually seen you die.

Which," you're barely breathing now, fury flooding through your body like white-hot metal, "is exactly twice as much as most people have to see their parents die! Not to mention I haven't brought up fucking  _once_  the absolute bullshit you put me through as a kid. And I think about it, _'B_ _ro'_ , all the time, all the fucking time, like it's some kind of repetitive obsession, like a fucked up song I got stuck in my head. You think you have it so bad because we're smothering you? Try having to take care of a dude who fucked up everything for the first thirteen years of your life, and yet for some un-fucking-discernible reason, you love the absolute shit out of him!"

"I never asked you to!" he barks, and you are stunned silent as he crushes his entire cigarette in his hand.

It is, all too suddenly, all too perfectly still, and you're not even sure if you could breathe if you tried. Bro exhales from his nose, another cloud of smoke, and his eyes are as sharp and mean as you've ever seen them.

"That's," you whisper, and you blink, too rapidly. "That's not fair."

He watches as you start to cry, and it's like everything you wanted to say is stuck in your throat, like everything you've struggled to achieve just falls apart right in front of you. "I don't know what you want me to say," he mutters, rakes a hand back through his hair.

"I want you to be better," you choke, and you sound bitter, and frustrated, and hurt. "I want a better Bro, I want a better fucking guardian, and it's not. It's not fair that everyone else got someone who loves them, and I got -" You. You got him. Your bro, who you love so much, who's made so much progress, he has, who you thought, almost, was so close to a fucking epiphany.

Bro looks away, then, and it hurts, more than anything else, that he doesn't want to see you cry. He drops the crumpled remains of his cigarette, wipes his hand on his pants. Doesn't mention the perfectly circular ring burned through his glove. "Yeah, well. Ain't the first time I've disappointed someone."

"But that's your fucking problem, Bro," you say, and your legs are not strong, but you kick him, anyway. You hurt so, so deep inside. "You don't get to decide how other people feel about you. You don't get to decide how  _I_ feel about you. I don't want you to be better because I hate you. Don't you  _get_ that?"

You don't know what else to say. You've layed yourself bare, and you feel cold, hollow inside.

"Dave," he says on an inhalation, and you push at him.

"You have to want to be better," you say, and you are crying now, real crying. You're so tired. "You have to try."

"I  _am_  trying," he grouses.

"I _know_ ," you sigh. Your voice feels faint, even to you. "But you have to try harder. You have to try if you want to change."

"I can't fix shit -"

"You have to  _try harder_ ," you say with force. "You can't - you can't just jerk me and Dave around forever. You can't leave us in this weird fucking place where we don't know where we stand with you. Where  _I_ don't know where I stand with you." Your hands are tight on your wheels, your body shaking. You're afraid, you're miserable. Why do you keep talking? You clear your throat, struggle with your words. It feels like a million barbs, trapped in your lungs, sharper with every breath. "I don't even know if you  _love_ me."

"Dave," he says again, and he doesn't sound mad now, just kind of tired as he fishes another cigarette free from his pocket. "What I did? The shit that went down? I don't know how to -" His fingers shake on his lighter. He takes a drag, blows it out, takes another. "I don't know, now, looking back. What I was thinking."

Your heart drops into your stomach, and he must know, because he clarifies, "Why I pushed you so hard. I think about it, all the time now. What'd you say? Repetitive obsession? These past few months have been. I don't know." He picks absently at his glove. "I can see it, y'know. The difference. How things are now, the stark contrast from before, like night and fuckin' day. And the truth is? I don't fucking know what to say.

"I think a part of me thought, if I can just get this kid through the game alive, that'll be enough. If I can make sure he's strong enough not to bite it, it'll justify why I -" He stops, then, glances at you, turns away. "Somewhere in there I lost control. Or maybe I had too much control. I sure as fuck don't have any, now." He lets out a strangled laugh, and it startles the shit out of you, that rusty, ugly sound, like he's never fucking tried.

"I can't justify what I did. I'm not going to." He looks at you, and his expression is as open as you've ever seen it. Tired, lips thin, eyes earnest, perfectly dry. "But I can see why it was wrong, and I can acknowledge it. I was wrong. I can't rewrite the past, and I can't ever make up for what I did. But I'm sorry, and I mean that. I'm so fucking sorry, Dave."

The roof is very quiet, then. A siren starts up in the distance, and then it's a harmony.

You breathe in, once.

Bro breathes out through the nostrils, stubs out his cigarette, shifts as if to move.

"Don't," you say quickly, and he freezes. "Um." Your voice shakes. "I want to..." You roll backwards, turn your chair, and then fling yourself at him.

You know without batting a lash that he'll catch you, keep you both safe, that he wouldn't let either of you fall off the fucking roof. You wrap your arms tight around his neck, and you don't let go.

You don't say, _"it's okay_ " _,_  because it's not, and you don't say _"_ _I forgive you"_ , because you don't, but when his hands come up, hesitant, delicate as anything, to touch the space between your shoulder blades, you almost sob. "Thank you," you say, and mean it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey so like. rough stuff! forgiveness ain't as easy as a sunday dinner but let's work on that!


	15. rose-colored glasses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave and Rose see the world a little differently. Genetic relation skewed through a relationship, or a lack thereof. Shit's difficult. Family's tricky. Dave isn't a very good brother, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!!! this was gonna be part of a much bigger, longer chapter which is a precursor to a sort of. arc, i suppose. but!! it just wanted to happen this way so i let it!  
> standard warnings for feelings, and some minor discussions of alcoholism. u know. typical strilonde bs!  
> Thank you so so much for every comment and reply to this fic, they are my everything and I screenshot them and read them throughout the day, so thank you <3

You enter the apartment with something leaning towards hesitance. Dave didn't tell you everything from the other night, just that Bro had apologized for something or another after lecturing him about feelings, and that they were cool. You're still not entirely sure you buy it.

You're not actually sure you buy your own made up story, when they finally got Bro a scan and he was cleared to go home (the faces of his doctors when he walked out into the hallway were priceless), but he's better now, at least. You hope. Jane promised to do a once-over, a little medi-magic checkup, though she's still learning, and sometimes it doesn't seem to work all the way? Dirk's nose took some quite literal tweaking before it was completely straight.

But then there he is on the futon, and it's like the squeeze on your throat finally releases. He's sitting with his legs up, a smuppet in one hand, sewing earnestly while Dave plays the Xbox, and you feel a kind of soothing nostalgia. Bro's sewing days used to be your only reprieve from ceaseless macho bullshit, when he was too busy working to bother you. He also let you play the Xbox for hours, if you finished your homework first, and he wouldn't even mock you too brutally for breaking it after fifteen minutes (or less, and you can hear his voice now, _“Really, kid? Again?”_ Haha).

Bro just barely looks up at you, the shift of his hat bill, the twitch of his shades, and he says, "Hey. Welcome back."

You feel like he's trying too hard, maybe, so that you won't freak, or maybe he still feels weird about the time travel thing. Fuck, you still feel weird about the time travel thing. You haven't tried since. You're not afraid to, not really, it's just.

Well.

You made it pretty fucking clear when Jade was batshit grimbark that you had precisely zero inclination towards doing it ever again. The fact that you HAVE, despite protests, doesn't exactly make you happy, either.

It's like losing a sense of purpose, you know, like everything you stand for as a guy suddenly means shit and you're left floundering in the sweaty armpit of the universe.  
You really need to cool it with the armpit jokes; Roxy hasn't let you live that down and it's slowly killing you.

Bro is still staring at you, and you flounder, don't know why you can't think of anything to say.

Rose has exactly zero problems, and exactly zero tact, or maybe too much, and she shoulders past you in the doorway, comes to sit delicately on the edge of the futon, in the space between him and Dave.

Dave eyes her suspiciously and then grunts, scooting away and looking uncomfortable.

And for good fucking reason, because when she speaks it is like a horror terror has left you in a doomed time bubble full of embarrassment so cringe-worthy it could end up on America's Funniest.

"Hello, Father," she says, and the predatory shine in her eyes is at full steam. "I'm glad to see you recovering."

You die a little inside, right there in that doorway, can just feel pieces of you crumble and drop off like dead leaves.

Bro goes so still you think, for a moment, he's pretending to be made of wax. Then he adjusts, tilting away from her, elbow making a heavy sound as it lands on the arm of the futon. "I don't recall giving you any kind of permission to call me that."

"Oh, I didn't figure I'd need it, considering our genetic relation," Rose says, too cheerfully. "However, since I am quite comfortable calling Dave my brother, it would then follow that perhaps you'd prefer that I, too, call you by a familiar moniker? Perhaps Brother Dearest? Brother Mine?"

A muscle in Bro's jaw jumps. It is never a good sign.

"Rose," Dave mutters weakly, clenching his controller close to his stomach. You don't fucking envy him, that's for damn sure.

"Of course," Rose keeps going, louder now, "given that you have never been much of a guardian to Dave, nor to myself, perhaps we should call you by your given name, Dirk."

You suck in air through your teeth, and Dave completely freezes. The air in the apartment feels cold, stagnant, and you almost shiver.

"I think I'd prefer if you didn't call me anything," Bro says, voice terse now, stabbing his needle into the puppet's ass pointedly. You know that if it was you, he'd probably be making you strife on the fucking roof right now.

"I think I prefer Father," Rose says like she doesn't even notice, and she pats his leg. "I have always wanted a dad."

Dave looks like he's about to sink through the floor, and his head jerks to you desperately, mouthing wordlessly. _Fucking do something, Dave._

If your life is a horror movie, Bro is Regan MacNeil and Rose is Father fucking Merrim, and his head turns so slowly that you can't imagine this panning out in a way that's interpretable as "good".

You have only seen him absolutely furious with you maybe three times in your life; when you broke his new turntables (the first time), when you tried to drown Cal in the shower (you're totally vindicated for that one you think), and that time you climbed a tree and broke your fucking arm and Bro had to pick you up from the school (he told you not to do it, he _fucking told you to be careful, Jesus, Dave, what were you thinking_?)

You know the tells before they come, and you know that Bro's about to fucking lose it in the quietest way possible.

"Rose," you say, voice strangled, "can I talk to you for a minute? Alone."

"I don't see why whatever you need to say can't be said in front of our dearest old dad," Rose says, but she is challenging and angry, smile blithe and eyebrows slanted dangerously.

What the fuck is her problem? Rose has shown almost no inclination towards Bro this entire trip, and you've watched them tiptoe around each other, carefully avoid discussing - well, anything. You don't actually know if you've ever seen them speak. Certainly not while you or Mom were in the room. Not that they'd have anything to talk about, you think. Except maybe to bond over how fucking stupid you are.

Bro puts down the puppet and you expect

You don't know. An explosion. Some kind of fucked up family feud in the middle of the living room. Get behind the podiums, kids, it's Lalonde vs Strider on why provoking a dangerous adult is a bad idea, and I'm your host, John O'Hurley!

That one's a little much, even for you. You wonder if, by some cosmic mistake, you've missed a changing in hosts since 2009, and maybe your joke isn't as funny now. (It wasn't really funny at all.)

You definitely expect the way Bro is now rising to his feet, and you see Dave start to scramble for his chair, folded nearby. Rose seems to hesitate, then. And she isn't short, your sister, and it's hard to tell now, where you get it from, but he dwarfs her, especially when sitting.

"Bro," you start, paper thin and a little too high-pitched.

"I'm going to," he interrupts, monotone but vaguely choked, "The store. For cigarettes."

Well. Okay. Wasn't expecting that at all?? It's like he's forgotten all about being menacing, like his only goal now is "escape". You can't blame him, you have a pretty similar reaction to most confrontational situations. You love Rose, you think, but she can be a bit much.

"Is this one of those scenarios in which you don't come back?" Rose does not let up, not even for a moment, but Bro sighs out his nose and storms across the apartment towards the door, and towards you.

You go to. Well, you don't know. Move? Make fucking way? Stop him? But you get stuck halfway, just stand there stupidly.

He stops, there in the doorway, and then leans past you, the arm of his shirt brushing your hair, as he snatches his keys and a hat.

"I'm glad you're not dead again," you blurt in a panic.

Bro turns to stone and back in under a second flat, 0.833 repeating, but who's counting, certainly not you, why would you say that, who can even count that low? When he shifts it's like he's moving through wet concrete, slow as buffet soft serve. His hand collides with the top of your head and you flinch. He doesn't remove it. Keeps it there. Pat pat.  
And then, like the cryptic fucking disaster he is, Bro is gone entirely, in less enough of a second that you don't even finish blinking. Ugh, he's a freak.

But you kinda feel. You don't know. Pat pat. Heh.

Still, you've got bigger fish to fry.

Or in this case, a fucking sister.

You turn on her and she's sitting there, looking just the tiniest bit contrite, all Lalonde-ish and frustrating and you want to. You don't know. Yell? You can't possibly yell at her. You've never yelled at Rose before, not even when she was drunk and tripping all over herself talking to you. God, you're a shitty brother. "Can I fucking talk to you in my room _now_?"

She stands slowly, glances at Dave, who is now muttering angrily to himself as he locks his ride into place. "What about -"

"I wouldn't fucking worry about me," he snaps, and he won't even look at her. You think, if anything, he's even more steamed than you are. Dude's practically got it coming out his ears over here. "Just get out of here before I lose my goddamn mind. I won't even listen. I'll turn up the TV or, or whatever. Who cares. Fuck off, Rose."

You don't really have time to unpack why he's so upset, because it's probably the same reason you're so upset.

She couldn't even give you a moment to talk to him, to answer on your own time. You would have. You don't know. Said something. Sorry I couldn't keep that all from happening? Sorry I time-traveled but didn't actually do anything to stop what was probably your second death? You're welcome? Fuck, at least you got out part of a sentence. That's progress, baby.

You're just tired, you think, of everyone intervening on your behalf, or curating your experience to fit their idea of how you should feel about something. It happened more and more on the meteor, even if you loathe to admit it, and seeing Rose do it now, when you have cross-timeline memories where she did and didn't care, or caused your discomfort, or unfairly prevented it, is infuriating.

You're mad as hell and frustrated and for once you wish Rose would just listen to you when you asked her not to do something.

Maybe your relationship isn't as good as you thought.

You flash over, grab her by the hand before she can complain, and drag her into your room without a word. You don't even know where to start.

Or you do, because you start by shoving her in and slamming the door and saying, "Rose, what the fuck was THAT?"

She whips around, and there is anger there, dark and sour, written all over her face. "What was what, dear brother? My attempt at friendly conversation?"

"That wasn't anything approaching friendly," you say, throw your arms up. "That was you being all wildly passive-aggressive even though both Dave and I were obviously uncomfortable."

"You and Dave are easily the least comfortable people I have ever met," she says, and the roll of her eyes is so much of you it hurts all the way down. "I have never met two people set on claiming to be so calm and yet so riddled with anxiety you can't even speak to the person who raised you."

"I was going to!" you snap, ignore her absolutely verbal goddamn lashing. "I was just building up the cool guy tension, was gonna have a real chill nod between me and the guy, maybe sit down there. Between him and Dave, I guess. Just right next to Bro. Like a person." As you speak you lose steam. It sounds dumb and lame and like you're afraid again. "And anyway he's my weird guardian, get your own fucked up male antagonist to angst over."

Rose's face morphs in a way you can't explain, into something between sadness and resentment, and a quiet, seething rage you've only ever seen on Bro. "He's my father, too, Dave."

"Yeah but you can't just _call_ him that," you anguish, barrel right over that weird fucked up thing she just said.

The look she gives you is cynical amusement. "Why not? You call my mother 'Mom', and I have stopped neither of you in that regard. In fact, I even allow you to call Roxy 'mom' despite having mentioned several times how much I wish you would not."

You open your mouth. Close it. That's. Sort of fair, you guess. Still. "Because she's _Mom_! He's not _my_ dad!" Well. Okay. "I mean he is, I guess, in the genetic sense, but that's pretty much where we draw the line."

Bro's pretty much always going to be an older brother figure for you, you think, even with that knowledge. Dude's still kinda young to be a "dad", he doesn't really have the vibe, and he's hells of less responsible than Mom. If anything, he's more of an Uncle Buck type. Wacky hi-jinks all the way down.

"He's my brother," you say, and find you mean it earnestly. It's not so bad, really, having a weird brodad. At least as long as he keeps being. Well. Just like that you guess. "And we're cool like that, and honestly I'm over here trying to like. I don't know. Figure our shit out? And starting shit with him is kind of a bit much, Rose, Jesus pantshitting Christ."

She crosses her arms, sits on your bed and cocks an eyebrow. Very standard Lalonde posture, there. She is not taking you nearly as seriously as you want her to. “You think he can't handle a little ribbing?”

You sigh, flex you hands. Rose has a way of getting under your skin that almost no one else does. Maybe it’s a crux of being related, or maybe it’s just a crux of being related to Dirk. “I'm not saying that, I'm just saying I'm like trying to make progress with the guy and. And you fucking it up with your flighty broad bullshit is making it worse." You wince. You sound defensive, and feel like a dumb little kid again. Like when you were still thirteen, and she’d needle you for details about growing up, during those boring hours on the meteor before she learned how to alchemize liquor. You fold your arms, decide that’s too obvious, and cross the room to flop into your/Dirk’s chair. Rub at your eyes under your shades. "Man, I don’t know, he almost fucking died, maybe we should give him a break?"

She rolls her eyes again, and it’s a wonder they don’t roll out of her damn head, meatballs in a kid’s song style. "Oh, yes, because you think his almost-death has absolved him from being held accountable for his past actions, and that he’s so completely fragile he can’t handle his genetic daughter mocking him."

"Because I want him in my life!" you shout, too honest. It comes out too loud, too angry, your chest burning, your heartbeat unsteady. "Because it's my decision, even if it's shitty, even if everyone else doesn't want me to.” It isn’t about her making fun of him, not really. You don’t think. You don’t know. You’re just so. Tired. “You think I'm not afraid of him Rose? That everything’s all fixed now because I managed to go back in time and have a heart-to-fucking-heart I didn’t realize we already had? That I’m cool with the way he skulks around our apartment like a teenager trying to sneak out for cigarettes and booze? That Dirk and all his fucking puppets and how damn hard he tries to hide his interests from me doesn’t still fuck with me? We ain’t even remotely out of the woods yet, we’re stuck in the fucking ground with roots wrapped around our feet or some shit, this is a Hans Goddamn Christian Andersen fairytale now and we’re entrenched in it. Gonna be befriending chicken and fox people next week, catch me at the farm stealing a bunch of carrots from a guy or something.”

“That’s Beatrix Potter,” she says quietly.

“Okay, cool, good to know.” You drag your hands down your face. “Rose, you want to know Bro? The real Bro? I can’t help you. I don't know anything about the guy. I don't know how much of Bro is Dirk and how much was Cal, and if any of that is left because let's face it he's not exactly the most straightforward guy. Dude's on tighter lockdown than a brief case in a business meeting and all the same old dudes keep clambering over it because they can't tell whose is whose and so they all keep trying their combinations."

Rose's face is all exhaustion and irritation. "Skip to the point, Dave."

"Right." She's right. Shit. Uh. "Uh."

She sighs out her nose, folds one leg over the other, foot shaking uselessly. “Our father isn't forthcoming. I get that. But do you really think it’s so strange for me to want to know anything about him? Anything at all?”

Well. Shit, you don’t know. You guess maybe that’s fair. You kinda crashed her and Roxy on the platform that one time. And Rose has been taking care to prod Dirk quietly for hobbies and interests, but you kinda figured. You don’t know. Maybe she wouldn’t be interested in knowing Bro? Because he’s a weird fucked up version of Dirk with major issues that neither of you are ready to deal with.

“But why?” is what comes out, like you can’t stop yourself. You’re not protective, not really. And you’re not entirely jealous. I mean maybe a little piece of you does want to keep Rose to yourself, or keep her from being disappointed when she realizes Bro isn’t.... you don’t know.

Rose shifts and takes on a posture you’re not used to. Leaning forward, elbow on her knee, staring at the floor. She looks tired. “Dave, I have known my mother my whole life, and yet not at all. Frankly, it's been somewhat exhausting, getting to know her again, as a seemingly more mature young adult.” She smiles at you, as if sharing a private joke. It kind of is, you guess, insomuch that Sburb made all your lives into a giant cosmic joke. “I am unsure if it is misguided sentiment on my part or just - just the desire to escape the idea that my mother makes up the whole of my nature but I...” She presses her lips together, smearing lipstick at the corners where her mouth turns down.

You’re starting to realize that yeah, maybe you’re the dick in this shituation, and that you were playing protective older brother when you didn’t have the right. Might still need a few more lessons before you take on the S stages. Looks like you’re still stuck at D (D is for Dave, and for Dickhead). “Are you seriously gonna look to Bro for the nature vs nurture argument?” you ask her, use your foot to rotate your chair 360. “I dunno if you’ve seen Dirk, but those two never met and I could tell from the first ten minutes interacting exactly how similar they are.”

She laughs a little, smile widening until it reaches her eyes. They crinkle at the corners the same way Dirk’s do, and you’re struck again how much the angle of her nose reminds you of him. Family is weird like that, you guess. “I suppose I can already see a pretty good indication of the argument in you. You have, despite everything, grown up quite kind, Dave.”

"I'm not kind," you snap, and don't know why. It wasn’t an insult. It just feels like a compliment you don’t deserve.You shrug, tug self-consciously at your shirt. "I just. Don't know how to be mean."

"Oh, you very much do." She laughs, but it is caustic, and short-lived. "And I have seen it play out time and time again. But there is something inherently good-intentioned at the baser level of your actions, Dave. It's not a bad thing, to be selfless.” You wince, but she doesn’t seem to notice, or doesn’t care to mention it. “You are a good person. If," she says playfully, "not a particularly good brother."

And damn, if she ain’t one hunny percent spot on with that. You don’t really know what to say in reply. You spin again, give yourself a second out of Lalonde Vision. Stare at your computer screen, the background, one of Roxy’s selfies, all of you squished together, Dave’s glasses on Rose’s head and your face mashed into Dirk’s eye. Heh. “I know,” you tell her, and you’re not lying. You know. You remember cramming your headphones on, ignoring her, letting her drink herself into a fucking nightmare. “I’m sorry.”

She sighs and you hear her shift, step across the room. You’ll never get used to that, the sound of everyone’s feet on the floor, like that’s just a thing people do. Her arms reach around and squeeze you at the throat, choking you a little. Her head drops on top of yours. “We can both try harder, okay?”

“Okay,” you say, and you hold her there, take the hug where you can get it. God, you’re probably such a fucking nightmare to deal with. Like a fucking gecko with sticky pads all over your toes except the sticky pads are your dumbass little pizza hands, clinging to anyone that touches you for more than a second.

Of course, like a fucking genius, you open your mouth to ruin everything. “Why are you so hard on her? Your mom, I mean. I’ve seen her with you, y’know. She loves the shit outta you.”

“Dave,” she says weakly, but she doesn’t move, like she can tell you don’t want her to. “Just because... Because she’s not like your brother doesn’t mean that we don’t have problems.”

And you know that, you do, because you used it as a snide little remark a dozen times over, when she was all liquored up and stumbling around after you. _Didn’t your mom used to drink? Didn’t you hate it?_ “But she’s trying really hard. I ain’t seen her have a drink, not once. And she’s kinda awesome.”

“The first week back was very difficult,” she murmurs, and then she is stepping back, turning you in the chair so you can see her. All the vitriol is gone, and all that’s left is your sister, tired and a little sad. “As I’m sure you are well aware. Recovery from addiction is a lifelong process, Dave. You should know it might not...” She sighs, looks away, back again. She squeezes your shoulders, and her face is serious. “It might not always be like this. Be good. She could relapse, worse than she was before, or Roxy could -”

“Hey,” you say, because you get the idea that a Good Brother **™** would stop her here, now, before she cries. “Hey now, Rose, don’t, it’s okay, it’s a’ight, c’mon. We’ll face that together. I’ll, I’ll help. Or some shit. I’ll ask Bro to help. Y’all can bond over how stupid I am. Or how bad I am at comforting people. I told him I was glad he wasn’t dead again, Rose. That's how fucking good I am."

She laughs softly, breathy and light, an exhaled stutter. “Alright, alright, cool your overactive fuel engines, Strider. I’m not going to have a meltdown.”

“Yer goddamn right,” you say, and you throw your arms around her stomach and squeeze, as hard as you can.

“I believe it’s ‘ur’,” she says gently, pats you on the head. Pat pat.

“I know,” you say, muffled into the fabric of her shirt. “But I still have no clue how you and Roxy do it.”

  
When your pale pal jam is goddamn done and over, you both shuffle out into the living room. Dave’s still there on the futon, one hand resting tentatively on his chair, and he lets out a huge sigh of relief when you both turn up in tact.

“Didn’t kill each other,” he says blandly. “Cool. Was getting worried.”

You shrug, because you’re still feeling really weird and guilty, and also unsure of how to talk to Bro about Rose, which apparently is a thing you have to do now. Your life is a spiral of bad and strange choices that you never want to make, but someone always seems to make for you. Maybe that’s just how you’re meant to be, as a Time player. It fucking sucks. You wish you could ask Aradia.

“Why, Dave Strider, absolute lamb of the Strider-Lalonde brood, brave enough to kill anyone else? Surely you think too highly of yourself, brother,” Rose says, and it’s a little mean-spirited, considering she knows exactly how you feel about it, but if everyone else can joke about it, maybe you’re being kind of a tight-ass.

Dave looks at you in a way that means he very clearly knows something is wrong with that statement, but won’t make you talk in front of Rose. “Okay, I am going to pretend I’m totally included in exactly what the fuck is going on with that and say ‘hahaha’ but I won’t mean it, really.”

“Can always trust you to be kind of a dick,” you snort, and then launch yourself onto the futon, feet landing square in his lap. You know he hates it because you hate it, but he just mutters under his breath and shoves them away. You roll your head to stare at a bleached spot that probably used to be blood. “Bro come back in yet?”

“No,” he says, looks pointedly at Rose.

She smacks his hand and drops down to sit square on your ass, like some kind of fucking Disney villain. “I am not apologizing for lightly mocking an adult human being.”

“Debatably human,” you and Dave say, and then both of you snicker.

Your shades flicker blue at the corner of your vision, but it’s just Jane, not John, asking when a good time to come over to check on your brother is. You don’t really know, because he’s not fucking here now. Thanks, Rose. Gonna have to send out the recon team to find the motherfucker. You wonder if you can still fly, but you know you’re definitely not enough of a man to test that one out. You certainly ain’t jumping off the roof. The idea sends your stomach cramping, and you can’t breathe for a moment.  
Although on second thought, that might be Rose, who is slowly crushing you to death.

Davesprite, being the absolute demon that he is, grabs your toes and presses on them so they all crack at once. You yelp and shoot upright, dislodging Rose and kicking him square in the jaw as you escape into the kitchen.

“Dude,” he groans, rubbing at his face.

“Dave, what the fuck,” Rose says as she climbs to her feet, and the way they both look at you makes it so fucking obvious how related you are.

“Sorry,” you say on reflex, pause. “Except no I’m fucking not! I’m not a chair, man, and I am definitely not any kind of hard-shell crustacean, okay, you don’t just grab a man by the feet and crack his toes, that’s how you break shit, Dave, you should goddamn know better than that.”

He just laughs, head craned back, and then leans forward, grabs his Xbox controller. “Whatever, baby. Hey, Rose, you ever play Mad Snacks Yo?”

“No,” she says, giving you the hairy eyeball from the coffee table.

“Well, sit the fuck down, ignore that douche, and play with me, okay?” You are unsure if he should really be letting Rose use Bro’s controller, but he’s not here so who fucking cares, you guess.

“You’re the favorite now,” Rose tells him, sitting down in the spot you just vacated.

“Hey!” you say.

“Haha,” Dave says, then he shows her how to play, and he’s way fucking better than you ever learned to be, and a much better teacher, too.

You might need some outside brother help to get this whole thing right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i keep thinking more days pass between these chapters than actually do! more happy!  
> more shoutouts to peonies, who is a delight and takes the time to talk to me about all of this shit and helps me work through the absolute disaster of a family interacting


	16. transversal trickshot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave talks to Bro. He's kind of a creep. He doesn't know how to stop. But maybe they're making progress, even if it's just a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did u know that in the south they call all soda pop "coke"? nightmare scenario, honestly  
> no tws this time, boys. that's a first! (actually that's not true, tw for dave's morbid sense of curiosity)

Bro does eventually come back. You shouldn't be surprised; he's rarely sincere about that kind of shit (although he did threaten to leave you in the Chuck E Cheese once, when you wouldn't get out of the ball pit to go home, and he made it all the way to the parking lot before you came running out, bawling at the top of your lungs). Still, you're relieved to find out that his trip wasn't for naught, as he's holding a CVS bag and a 6-pack of cokes when he walks in.

He scowls at Rose, but luckily for you she doesn't seem to mind, tapping away at the game, somehow managing to avoid the jpeg artifacts and get through the halfpipe without breaking it. He leaves those on the table in front of you with a purposeful clunk, almost like he's trying to be nice or something. God, what a weirdo.

"Hey, Bro," you say, soft as anything, and then you flash step over to him when he retreats to the kitchen, before he can try to escape. The way he not-quite flinches, his left hand curling like he almost reached for his sylladex, makes it clear that you're definitely faster than you used to be. Hell yeah. Take that, Bro. "Can I like. Can we talk? Real talk. On the roof."

He regards you carefully and then nods, sets down the bag and puts something in his pocket. "Sure, kid. Why don't you head up? Gimme a minute here."

You nod, glance back at the futon. "You're not gonna kill Rose, are you?"

This close you can see his eyebrows raise a decimal, and he snorts. "No, I ain't gonna kill your damn sister. Go, but I'm tellin' you, it's hot as balls out there. Just need to change my shirt." He disappears and you wonder, tracking the faint after image, if you'll ever figure out where the fuck the dude keeps his dresser. Maybe you just always imagined he wore the same damn clothes every day.

Actually, wait, that's just you now.

And you know what? Yeah you're still wearing the damn godtier robes, so sue you they're fucking comfy. Not everyone got a magic wardrobifier in place of a dresser okay. And Davesprite may be cool wearing Dirk's old sweatpants and jeans, but you've got class, and you are NOT wearing a hat on your shirt.

Dave gives you a nervous glance when you make your way across the room, and you shrug. You don't know what you're fucking doing, either.

You have no clue what to say to him, how to talk to a guy who you've known for thirteen years and yet not at all. I mean it's not like you haven't talked to him, lately. And you even told him you were glad he wasn't dead (definitely nailed that one, definitely NOT dying inside from embarrassment or anything). It's just. You don't know how to. Talk about the emotional stuff. The weird stuff. The Rose stuff.

And Bro's right, because as half-hearted as the AC is, sputtering into your apartment, it is nothing compared to July in Houston goddamn Texas, and you very suddenly want to sit here in the stairwell. Maybe go back downstairs. Ask Bro if you can talk in the garage. He might even take you to Taco Bell, if you're lucky, but you don't know if either of you could handle the heat stroke sitting in a hot car would cause you on a day like today.

Well. You ain't fucking going back out there, that's for damn sure. You walk back to your apartment landing, and then turn the corner and drop down onto the second flight of stairs. He'll find you, eventually, if he doesn't immediately. He's always been good at finding you like that. It hasn't always been a bad thing.  
The air is stagnant here, but it's cool, and dark, and a welcome reprieve from the outside scorch. You wonder if Bro will take you to the pool this year, if you're allowed normal summer activities now that. Well. Now that you're a god, you guess.

He certainly fucking made you finish the school year like you were a normal kid, he and Mom dragging you and Dave both kicking and screaming the whole way. Fuck's sake. Oh well. Guess maybe one day you'll go to. To college or something?

Oh my God does that even matter anymore?

Does  _any_ of that matter? And what about the Game? What about everything you fought for? What the fuck was any of that even for if you're just. Just back here in Houston goddamn Texas, sitting on the stairwell of an apartment you've lived in your entire life, doing the same mundane shit you've always done. Why did you have to beat the fucking game, what did you even fucking kill Dirk for?

Where's the new world you were promised? And if this is it, where's your place in it?

A cold hand slaps the back of your neck and you yelp, jump a foot in the air, sword dislodging itself from your sylladex and firing down the stairs and into the wall above the emergency exit sign.

You hear a breathy laugh, an almost "hahaha" and then Bro drops beside you in a loose pile of limbs.

"Dude," you gasp, clutch your chest for the drama, and also because your heart is going a million miles an hour. "What the fuck."

"Could hear you thinking from upstairs," he says, and yeah, he's definitely smiling now and yeah, it is super weird. "Just thought I'd snap you out of it."

"With what, a mitten made of fucking ice?" Which, point of fucking order, he's not wearing his gloves. Or a white polo. Uh?? He's also holding two cokes, one orange, one root beer. You wrinkle your nose. "I don't like root beer."

"I know," he sighs, pushes the Fanta can into your grasp. "But your friends do."

"Friends," you say slowly, taking it and rolling it between your hands. It's a welcome chill on your sweaty skin, and you press it your forehead for a brief second before messing with it again. "What fucking friends?"

Bro sure is sitting there wearing a blue polo (collar popped, gotta stay on brand) you've never seen before. "Lalonde and Crocker." The chest pocket says  _Ron's Downtown Auto Service_. Who the fuck is this guy?

"What do you know about Jane," you scoff. You shouldn't ask. Knowing him lately, he'll drop some sick knowledge bomb on you about how he used to go skiing in the Alps with her dad. Somehow.

"Honestly, Dave?" He shrugs, cracks open the root beer. "Not fucking much at all. I just asked. Someone."

What? Oh, he means - “You mean Dirk.” He scowls, doesn’t answer. Yup. Definitely means Dirk. “When the fuck did you have time to ask him for his chum handle?” Dirk hasn’t so much as looked at Bro since you got back from the hospital day before yesterday, and you can’t blame him for it, either.

Bro looks at you like you’re a stupid little kid about 9 times outta 10, and it’s a ratio you’re comfortable with. Idiot Little Brother is pretty much your exact steez, and ain’t nobody gonna jock it from you. Point of fucked up pride and all that. Still, watching him tip his head back, shades to the ceiling, and then roll his neck to look at you, is a special kind of stupid that’s usually reserved for Red Rings. “I didn’t have to, Dave.”

“Oh,” you say, because wow. Wow, okay, this is officially the dumbest you’ve ever been. You are  _not_ smarter than a Fifth-Grader, and if Jeff Foxworthy were here, he’d personally shove you down the stairs in pure southern shame. Speaking of stairs, when was the last time you even updated SBaHJ?? “Right. Fuck, I’m a dumbass.”

“Yeah,” he snorts into his drink, elbows you lightly. “But it’s alright. I won’t tell him.”

“I wouldn’t care if you did,” you say defensively, like a liar. You doubt that Dirk would do more than smile at you, but he’d do it with his tongue pressed into his cheek, and he’d look right through you for a few minutes in a way that would make it very clear he was telling one of his friends about the stupid thing you just said. You cannot fucking have that. But you are not about to tell Bro. Instead you say, “What the fuck is up with your shirt, dude?”

He raises an eyebrow, looks down at himself like he’s seeing it for the first time, then back up at you. His entire face goes so blank and dry that you feel yourself shrivel up and die a little inside. “Normal people change their clothes, Dave.”

Fuck you, he is never going to let you live that one time in the Taco Bell down. Only one person took a picture. The cashier didn’t even actually cry. “Okay, this is literally coming from the guy who has been wearing the same outfit pretty much every day of my entire life.”

He shrugs. “A guy’s got a reputation to uphold.”

“Of being the world’s biggest tool,” you say.

“Exactly that,” he nods.

You keep staring.

He stares back. Cracks, sighs, rolls his fucking eyes so hard you can see it behind his shades. “I was out walkin’ in hundred degree weather, I grabbed the first fucking shirt I could find. That answer your question well enough?”

“No,” you say, even though it does, kinda. It’s more boring than you would have liked. “Why do you have an auto service shirt just - just wherever the fuck you keep your clothes? Who the fuck is Ron? And where DO you keep your clothes? I have never once in this house seen you near anything considered a dresser. But you also don’t walk around smelling like week old feces, so what gives? Where the fuck are you keeping all these apparently identical fucking polos? And why aren’t you wearing your stupid gloves?”

Bro lets you talk with the patience of a seasoned Dave’s Ramble victim, chin in his hand. “My hands aren’t immune from sweating, Dave. I’m not a fucking robot.”

“Coulda fooled me,” you mutter without thinking.

You expect him to smack you upside the head, or to curse at you, or to rake you over the coals. Something. Anything. Instead, he sighs heavy through the nose and looks at Caledfwlch, down the stairs, still stuck in the wall. “I’m. Sorry for leaving earlier. I shouldn’t’a done that. It was shitty.”

You’re almost certain, right then, that you accidentally freeze time, with how your heart seems to stop, how it feels so still and quiet in that stairwell that you could hear a pin drop. How Bro sits, one hand curled around a root beer, the other tucked under his chin. It’s over in less than the tick of a clock. You feel a wave of nausea and you can just  _hear_ the blood rushing into your ears, and both of you breathe in sync for a moment, a century. “Um,” you manage. Dig around for something to say. Bro has never apologized to you, not for anything. “Yeah, it’s. It’s actually probably better you left. I kinda exploded on Rose after you bailed.”

He looks at you. “For real?”

“Yeah,” you say weakly, roll the Fanta around a bit more nervously. You aren’t really thirsty, but you feel hot under the collar - or cape, anyway, and like you need to escape. You might be a little embarrassed. “It’s uh. It’s cool now. That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Bro’s jaw clenches tight and you shift, put down the can between your feet. If you need to outrun him, you can probably make a quick scramble down the side of the stairs. And then he says, “Alright,” and you release all the tension you were holding. You’re getting real sick and tired of this guy and his delayed reactions to shit. You’re gonna die of stress this way.

“Okay you see the thing with Rose is, she’s just like that? Like really passive-aggressive and talkin’ in circles until you’re all spun around like a dude on a bucking bronco because hell yeah, Texan references. The thing is, she never really means half the shit she says. Like, she doesn’t hate you, I think. I mean, she kinda implied to me that she really specifically DOESN’T? Lotta that going around lately, haha, sorry. Anyway my point is that sometimes you’re looking at a heaping pile of Lalonde-colored horseshit and you don’t know which way is up. Like, like one of those paintings.”

“Escher,” he says gently. “But most of them aren’t actually paintings.”

“Okay, sure, that guy. Except the guy is a girl and the girl is your genetic sister and she’s trying to unwrap some mystery that you didn’t goddamn realize was a mystery until she pointed it out and now you’re kinda like? Questioning everything. Well. Not everything. Just maybe I - I mean, you were looking at the not-painting a certain way and you were sure that was the ONLY way, and - and maybe.” You take a deep breathe in, choke on it. “Maybe you’re starting to realize you were wrong? But like. Really wrong? And you messed up really bad.”

“Did you mess up really bad?” His voice is low, but soft, neither pushing nor prodding.

“Kinda,” you mumble. Pick at the lid of your can without popping it. “I hurt her feelings saying some stuff that I didn't realize was a problem. And I just feel like a really shitty brother right now. Not just cuz of today, but cuz’a things that happened in the past three years, and across timelines no one but me n Dave remember, and I’m just really thinking I dropped the ball on being there for her.”

“Maybe you did,” he says carefully. You don’t jump when his hand touches your back this time, just curl in a little bit. He presses the space between your shoulders before retreating, and it almost feels like a comfort. “Family isn’t - it ain’t ever easy, kid. You can’t force people to change themselves over night. And I sure as fuck know what it’s like, to mess up royally. Could say I’m pretty much the king of it.”

“At least a prince,” you say, with humor. You’re not entirely sure he’ll understand it, but it makes you smile.

“Sure. Thing is, you’re still a kid. It ain’t your job to fix all your shit by yourself. Whatever - whatever _Rose_ ,” and he says her name with a certain measure of distaste, “is going through, or went through on that front, it isn’t your burden to fix that.”

“But there’s no one else,” you say. “And I don’t know how to help her.”

“I -” Bro sighs heavily out his nose, his foot starting to tap, his fingers a rolling beat across his chin. “I am the last person on this fucking planet that can help your sister, Dave. But I’ll talk to Roxy, if it’ll help  _you_ feel better.”

You don’t think it will. You don’t know how to bring up the alcoholism thing without sounding like you’re whining, or blaming yourself. Maybe it’s a little bit of both. “I don’t know if she’d be the right person to ask,” you hedge.

You don’t expect Bro to get it. He’s not stupid, far from it, Christ you’ve met Dirk, but you don’t know. Maybe he’s a little willfully dense? But he does get it, immediately, and you can see the moment he puts it together, like a light coming on in a studio. He pushes his fingers up under his shades to press on his eyes. “Christ,” he mutters, sits there for a long minute. “Roxy Jr. too?”

“Um,” you say, shift nervously. It kinda feels like private information maybe? But you kinda dropped the ball (again, fuck) blabbing about Rose. “Yeah. But she’s. Uh. She doesn’t. You know.”

He grunts, wipes his hands down his face. “Okay.” He climbs to his feet and you almost grab for his shirt in a panic.

“Hey, wait -”

But he just trots down the stairs, dislodges Caledfwlch from the wall with a carefully placed foot and a helluva lot more upper arm strength than you. Probably for the best. You woulda broken it. He weighs it in his hand, looks it over with a measure of reverence. “Heavy,” he says, but it sounds like praise.

“Two-hander,” you agree. It feels weird, to see someone else holding it. Hysterically, you think of the irony of a Dirk holding the weapon you used to kill him. You think of your hands poised to swing, think of the way it cut like butter -

"Stop looking at me like that," Bro says, and he walks back up the stairs, does a sweeping bow and a dramatic gesture as he kneels before you, sword offered above his head. "For you, King Arthur."

"What are you, fucking Lancelot?" you snort, hesitant to take it. Your fingers brush his, chilly, rough, and you feel the weight of your execution weapon in your hands for the first time since the Game ended.

"Well I sure ain't no fucking Galahad," he says dryly, and he drops there, a few steps below you, so that you have to look down over your shades to see him folded up there.  
"I don't think it's an actual magical British sword," you say, and mumble a quick beat to banish it back into your strife specibus. Your chest feels lighter when it's gone. "More like a bad mockery."

"Mm, got the job done though, didn't it?" Bro's cavalier attitude towards death both disturbs and intrigues the shit out of you, because you, Dave Strider, have always felt quite the opposite.

What you blurt is, "Do you have a scar?"

It really is too bad that you don't have a phone or camera ready, because Bro's face is fucking priceless.

It's gone as soon as it came, and suddenly it's a mask, maybe a little discomfort. "Do you really want to know the answer to that question?"

"No," you say on reflex. Amend, almost immediately, "Yes."

Bro gnaws on his lip, a display of hesitance you're not used to, or comfortable with. You think maybe that was a really fucked up thing to ask. But fuck, you've been wondering for months now, and it just kinda. Came out. Dirk doesn't have a single mark of death on him, and (yeah, you checked) neither do you. You already asked, anyway, nowhere to go but up from here. "Yeah," he says eventually.

"Can I see it?" you ask, like the macabre sonnuvabitch you have apparently become. You don't know why you said that, and you don't know why you're not taking it back right now. You just. Really want to know.

Bro gives you the most dead-eyed stare he can manage with shades on. "Seriously?"

You think about coming across him on John's planet, lifeblood still oozing from his body, pinned to the ground by his own sword like a butterfly to a corkboard. Dumbstruck by yourself, and morbidly curious, you nod.

Bro drops his head, sighs through his nose. "A'ight. But I want you to know, Dave, that this is definitely something we're probably gonna need to talk about later."

"I don't have the best history with talking about this kind of thing in a healthy or normal way," you mumble, shoving your shades up onto your head so you can see in the dark.  
He lets out an honest to god laugh, like he's some kind of human person. It's just like Dave said. The glint of teeth, a crooked smile, rusted stutter. "No shit." He takes off his hat, his shades, puts them down gently on the step by your feet, and then, one-handed, like an absolute tool, he drags his shirt off over his head.

You've seen Bro shirtless plenty of times, it's nothing new. The hilarity of his farmer's tan, where the freckles cut off and your matching pasty skin begins. The scar that runs up across the left side of his chest (car accident, indeterminate age, but predating you). The long, raised white line that drags up his arm from the base of his bicep towards the shoulder, [the one and only time you drew blood on him](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16864765). You've seen it all. Most of Bro's scars are across the ridges of his knuckles, same as Dirk's, too much discipline at too young an age.

You do spare a second to snicker at the way his hair sticks up all over, like Dirk when he falls asleep before a shower, or he drags his hands through it, sticking on gel. He looks stupid. It's a good moment for you. But then your eyes flick down to his chest, and you see it, and you'll never get over the fact that your brain's first reaction is  _"that's it?"_

It's not much of anything, really, a sliver of a starburst but stretched thin, right in the center of his sternum, and the aesthetic of the positioning would, you think inanely, make for a pretty cool photo. But beyond the positioning, and the uncomfortable vision that skates across the back of your eyes, Davesprite's memory of his sword in Jack's hand, drawn back, positioned to impale, it doesn't bring you nearly as much satisfaction as you thought it would.

"Huh," you say, because you're an idiot who can't keep his mouth closed. "Does it go through the back?"

Bro's shoulders drop when he sighs, and he turns enough that you can see that yeah, it does, and that it caves in like a dimple, like the sword was ripped straight out of him on his way back up to the land of the living.

"Cool," you say. And then, like a polite little southern gentleman, "Thanks."

"Yee-up," he says, in a way that makes it very clear exactly how weird and uncomfortable you have made this conversation. He tugs his shirt back on, runs a hand absently through his hair, and replaces his shades, leaves the hat.

You offer it to him, but he waves you off, drops back down next to you again. "Need a shower later, anyway."

"Good, you stink," you say, and laugh when he shoves you in the head lightly.

"I'm gonna fucking take those clothes and burn them," he huffs, picks up his coke and slurps at it.

"I don't actually know if you can," you admit, watch him stare into space a little. "They're pretty fucking magic."

"I can fucking try."

The sleeves of his shirt are rolled up so they're a little shorter than they should be, and there's a stain on the shoulder that, when you lean back, bleeds further back towards the collar.

"What," he says, disinterested. You're staring again, you know.

"Where the fuck did you get this shirt?" you demand, and because you're feeling brave, and you already made him show you his horrible death wound, you reach out and hook two fingers into the sleeve, tug on it. It feels worn thin, not particularly soft, and catches on the edge of your calluses.

He drains the root beer, holds out his hand. You give him the Fanta. You don't want it, anyway. "It's not an interesting story, Dave."

"But it might be," you say. "To me." You're sitting there, holding onto your brother like a little kid again, just as demanding, just as self-conscious. Is it so fucking much to ask one question? To want in past the flat mouth and dead eyes? You don't know anything about him, other than that he likes puppets? That you can't say Cal's name around him (you haven't tried, not since that first day, you're petrified), and that he's still pretty much on his anime ninja bullshit, just turned down from 11 to 3, maybe 4 on a bad day.  
He gives you a long-suffering look that you see from the side of his shades. Pale eyelashes, lines that crease the corners, cheekbones void of Dirk's freckles. You don't know anything about him, and you are floundering.

"Rose wants to get to know you better," you say, like that justifies the intensity of your badgering. Like it makes more sense than your own (completely fucking valid) curiosity. "That's why she was picking fights. Why she was so mad at me. She just wants to like. Idk. See herself in you? Or something?"

"Dave," he sighs. Runs his hand back through his hair again. A nervous habit, maybe? Something Dirk doesn't share, still too fussy and insecure about his hair. "I ain't really in the place to..."

"She doesn't need an actual parent, she just." You shrug, helpless. "Wants to know you, man. Just a little."

He hums, but he doesn't sound happy.

"Think about it?" you wheedle. "For me?"

He scowls. "That's some low ass shit, Dave."

"I know," you say quietly, and you give one final tug at his shirt. "If it's just a shirt, then why do you still have it?"

Bro tilts his head to regard you carefully. "Not everything I do has some messed up purpose, you know that, right?"

"No," you admit, and suddenly you feel exposed, sitting there with your shades on your head and your hand curled into his sleeve. You think about the way he moves, with purpose, the way he ripped your sword free safely (haha sword in the stone, except sword in the plaster), _Stop looking at me like that,_ how he brandished your sword one-handed, how he knelt in front of you. "How do you do that thing? Where you always know when someone's looking at you?"

His mouth ticks down at the corner. "I don't know. And I don't really want to talk about it." He frees himself from you when he moves his arm to rub at the back of his neck, like he's trying to chase something away. You've struck a nerve, you can tell, you just don't know why. "But I'll think about it. What you said. 'Bout talking to Rose."  
You lean away when he rolls to his feet, finally retrieves his hat. "What about me?" you ask meekly.

He looks at you over his shades, hand still poised to grab his hat. Orange eyes, like amber, like fire. "Are you really that fucking curious about my shirt?"

"Yes," you say, just to be stubborn. You didn't care that much at the start, honestly. It just bothers you that he's being so cagey about it. Now you're fucking invested. You have to know. You'll die if you don't know.

Bro sighs, wedges his cap back over his wild hair. "It ain't much of a story." And then he moves, slow, like he doesn't really want to, and he reaches into the breast pocket and fishes something free. "Don't say I never gave you nothing." And he slaps whatever it is into your palm.

You expect it to be. You don't know. Something secret, or cool, maybe weed or a lighter or even a cigarette?

It is none of those things.

You uncurl your hand and you're holding a nametag, embroidered red on white, long-since torn from it's place on a shirt older than you are.

"Dirk," you read softly.

He pops the tab of your orange soda, drains about half of it. "Told you. Isn't an interesting story."

"I didn't know you knew how to do that kind of thing." You rub a thumb along the D, look at the imperfection of the cursive k. "Mechanic stuff."

"It's been a long time," he shrugs.

You feel silly now, holding his old name tag, sitting in a dark stairwell. You don't need a lot of effort to think about Bro as a teenager, Dirk's face smeared with grease, all long limbs and too wide shoulders. It makes sense, really. Him and his beatup truck, how it never fell into disrepair, not even that one summer drive to El Paso and back. It wasn't really much of a story, just like he said. But it makes you happy. "Dirk likes to do that kind of thing, too. Build stuff. Robots, mostly."

"Yeah?"

You nod. "Yeah. He made a robot version of himself once that I heard kicked some pretty serious ass. You woulda liked it."

"I used to be in a robotics club in high school," he offers, quiet and a little stilted. "Won a couple awards. It's pretty neat stuff."

You stare at him. You just heard your bro, your big scary brother with his intimidating facial features and indomitable height, say the word _neat_. "That's so fucking lame, dude," you whisper.

"Go to hell," he says, kicks you in the shin. "Anyway, didn't go much of anywhere. Graduated early, got a job at the shop. Was okay money, for a kid." He hunches up his shoulders in a mighty shrug, chugs the second half of his coke, and crushes it in his hand. "You wanna go back up? Maybe you can introduce me to Lalonde all nice and proper."

"I don't know if she's ready for that," you admit, but you take his hand when he offers it to you, let him drag you up like you weigh a half pound of jackshit. "And honestly? Neither am I."

"Join the damn club, kid." Bro releases you immediately, bows to grab the other can. "But we can try, a'ight? Together."

And you know what? You don't expect a lot from Bro, you haven't in a long fucking time, but right here? Right now? You let that tentative look on his face, the press of his lips, the offer of an attempt, make you smile. "Yeah. Hell yeah, man. Let's crush it."

He lets you lead the way up the stairs and you don't turn back in fear, today, not even once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey thanks for stopping by! i really enjoyed having a chapter where nothing really went wrong!! also yeah, I'm rly big love signs at sundown, and I super recommend it <3  
> As always, thanks for the comments and kudos (I cry), and if you do truly have questions, let me know, I love to talk about stuff and I'm bad at keeping secrets!


	17. refraction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirk gets a little wrapped up in his head sometimes. Okay, a lot of the time. He only has a week to prepare for new experiences and a familiar face, and he isn't ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! It has been a couple days but I wrote this complete monstrosity so. You're welcome for that. Love all of you for sticking with me here, and when your names pop up in my inbox, I cheer! Thank you!  
> standard warnings for Dirk's generally morbid sense of humor and the teen self-loathing we all expect at this point!  
> PS sorry it is abt 11k

Your name is Dirk Strider, and like every goddamn day since your arrival on this fucked up, bizarre world, you are kind of freaking the fuck out.

It is officially August, Jane has been in Houston for a week and a half, and you are, despite your best efforts, on the verge of losing it.

It isn’t the change in scenery, as of late. You’ve gotten used to hotel sleepovers, the comfort of the hard floor beneath you, wedged between Roxy or Jane, and the wall or Dave (when he’s up to it, and fuck that took some goddamn time). You can fall asleep with someone's head on your shoulder, don't panic as bad if someone besides Dave rolls over onto your arm or traps your leg. You are unlearning your neuroses, one by one, and you are making good progress.

You can handle the extra people, because they are, as time passes, becoming  _your_  people, and you don’t even mind the way Rose prods at you like a kid with a stick, curious smile and too-sharp eyes. You see yourself in there, just like Roxy told you, and you’re not sure if it’s a good thing. (It doesn’t necessarily feel like a bad one, anyway.) You don't really listen when Mom Lalonde tells you to do things, but it kind of seems like that's what she expects from you, anyway. DS and Dave certainly aren't hurting for the attention, and you're happy to let them have it.

And you’re not panicking about settling in back home, even though you haven’t talked to Bro since Jane fixed him (because you don’t know what to say, and because he’s been pretty busy trying to avoid the growing number of people who traffic his over-glorified bedroom throughout the day). The apartment is still your safe space, even with Dave's bed, and your desk, and the mishmash of items that are neither yours nor his but somewhere in between. You are the most comfortable when you are here, Bro or no Bro.

It’s just. 

Jane’s leaving on Monday, and the following week, you’re supposed to go visit _her_. Which would be fine, you’d be fine, if it was a walk down the street, because you can do that, you are the big man, you HAVE the confidence. Maybe you’d even say hi to the neighbors, offer to walk someone’s dog. You’re charitable, you’re a good personality and southern charm. You can totally do all those things, and you would, if Jane lived in Texas.

But Jane does not live down the street, or in Texas, or even within driving distance whatsoever.

She lives in Washington.

There are no teleporters here, in this world (at least not until Jade figures out her powers, if she still has them, and puts them to the test, and even then, the idea of stepping through the physical form of another being makes you want to, ironically, vomit pretty badly). The main long distance mode of transportation is, of course, flying. You have never been on a plane before and frankly, your backlog of movies is doing very little to help ease you into the idea of a ten ton death machine operated by a human you have never met before and therefore do not inherently trust with your life.

  
“You flew across the fuckin’ ocean on a glorified hoverboard to come save me, tho,” Roxy says, currently pulling your hair into something resembling two tiny pigtails (it’s okay, you said she could, and you are only regretting it a little).

“That’s... different,” you say slowly, frowning in concentration. You swipe a delicate layer of polish onto DS’s finger. “I used experimental technology and trusted myself not to get killed.” You think about that for a second, add reluctantly, “Prematurely.”

“Well, you ain’t fucking rocket-boarding to Washington,” Dave says, and he may as well be in heaven right now, letting Jane brush his hair earnestly into something resembling a braid. You want her to teach you but you don’t know how to ask. “Mom would kill you.”

“Please don’t remind Bro that that’s an option,” DS sighs, head getting jerked back as Rose snaps another ribbon into place. “Mom hasn’t even told him she’s dragging him along yet. He’ll fucking try it, if we let him.”

“Which is why we ain’t gonna,” Dave says, giving you a pointed stare. It’s kind of hard to take him seriously, wearing one of Roxy’s shirts that slumps off his shoulder and is at least two times too short for his torso, exposing his entire lack of any kind of tan. It is, despite all your fondness, absolutely hilarious. He jabs a finger in your direction. “If anyone here is gonna crack, it’s you, Dirk.”

You put your hands up in defense. They have a very good fucking point, regarding both you and Bro, because if they let you, you’d rocketboard your ass to fucking Alaska before riding in an airplane. “We barely communicate. I ain’t doin’ shit.”

“If you just talked to him about how much it means to you that he accompanies you, I’m sure he’d come around to the idea of safe travel,” Jane says. Ever the optimist when it comes to matters of the Heart, your Jane. She has too much faith in you, and by extension, Bro. The fact that she isn’t afraid of him is something you’ll never get used to. She turns Dave’s chair around to face her, regarding her work with the tilt of her head and the stroke of a chin. “Hum, I’m not much for makeup. Roxy, perhaps you and I should switch...?”

“Say no more!” Roxy has exactly zero qualms abandoning your half-assed hairdo. You can’t believe you agreed to this. You can’t believe you showered for this.

You sigh heavily through your nose, focus on adding another round of shrimply divine to Dave’s pinky. You could be working right now. You could be concocting an actual scheme using the transportalizers and a fenestrated window.

You wonder, amused, maybe a little guilty, if you’d resurrect properly if you sent yourself piece by piece to Washington. Bite down on that thought, rewind and adjust for normal morbidity filters. You come back with a solid “Probably not fucking cool to joke about in front of your friends.” You glance over at the back of Dave’s head, the way his short hairs are already falling out of Jane’s neat little braids. Probably especially not fucking cool to joke about in front of him.

There’s a slight tug on your hair and you slingshot yourself back, blink up at the smiling face of Jane. You’d be embarrassed you got lost in thought, but you have a feeling she is covering for you right now, gives you a secret wink. _It’s okay._

“Mind if I touch your, ah, intricate flock of nesting birds, Mr. Strider?”

“It looked just fucking fine before Roxy mangled me,” you say, offer a slanted smile. _Thank you._ “But yes, Miss Crocker. You have my permission, at your leisure.”

She scooches behind you, settles into the chair, and digs her fingers in, immediately begins to loose the knots caused by Roxy’s over-eager hands. “Jesus Christmas,” she sighs, and then you feel her start to drag your bangs back into the beginnings of a braid, short nails scraping lightly against your scalp.

It’s kinda nice, after all.

“If it eases your fears, I’m sure mother has gone above and beyond regarding seating and accommodations,” Rose says simply, trying in vain to tuck DS’s hair behind his ear. She frowns when the stubborn golden locks slip free like filament, and you muffle a snicker. Fine-ass baby haired chumps.

“I don’t know if that’s entirely what I’m worried about,” you say, and upon realizing your mistake, amend, “and I don’t recall saying anything about being afraid.”

Dave speaks before anyone can call you on your horseshit and lies. “Of course you’re not afraid, because it’s gonna be cool as fuck, seeing John and Jade again, and I for one could not be fucking happier to get out of this hell hole of a heatwave.”

“Amen to fucking that,” DS mutters, although his mouth has curled into a frown, and you wonder if he and Jade will be any worse off in a room than you and Jake. You think, bitterly, that at least Jade doesn’t remember the entirety of their relationship. Squash that down. It’s not Dave’s fault. You’re being a dick, as well as a huge fucking mess.

And Jesus pantshitting Christ, would you believe it? You  _are_ that self-centered. While yes, you are currently absolutely petrified of air travel, and while that is definitely one of two things currently emotionally crippling you, the prospect of seeing Jake again is really what’s got you tied in fucking knots.

You have been preoccupied with it since Roxy volunteered you both for what’s now become a Huge Fucking Deal of a trip. You didn’t sleep, the first two days after (you know some shit went down with Rose and Dave, but you haven’t had the mental energy to ask, and they’ve both been kind of hedging around it, so you don’t want to pry). And for the next few days after that, when you DID sleep, it was fitful, and you oscillated between the hallway and the roof of the hotel, and when you were tired, moved to the bathroom, spent a couple hours staring at the decorative ceiling until Roxy found you and dragged you back down.

You don't mean to get so wrapped up in your own thoughts, to the point where they're corrosive, where they gnaw and gnaw at you, where your body starts to wear down in protest. It's just that you can't control them.

It's not  _Jake's_ fault that they're visiting Washington, or that you've been signed up as an emotional support Dirk (Jane's going to have to loan you out through Dave's rental services, you think, maybe pay a fee, if this is going to be a regular thing).

It's not  _his_ fault that you were such a shitty boyfriend (it is a little his fault, in fairness, that he returned the favor in kind, but you pushed him to it, you think). 

It’s not that you want to date Jake again, or make up in any way that can be seen as romantic, because you definitely definitely definitely don’t. You saw the road that lead you down, and honest-to-Betsy, it wasn’t fucking healthy, not for either of you. You know that. That and you ‘n Jane really need... Well. You don’t know. You think maybe it’ll just be better for the absolutely claustrophobic relationship between your tiny friend group if you just. Don’t.

More than anything in the entire world, you want to apologize to him. You want to be friends again. You just don’t know how.

“There,” Roxy says, loud enough to bring you back down. She spins the chair around to reveal Dave and you

You just kind of stare.

DS lets out a crow of startled laughter.

“Well?” Dave drawls, and the crooked grin curling on the left side of his mouth is such genuine amusement that you can’t help but respond in kind. “How do I look? Am I hot?”

“The eyeliner might be a bit,” Rose chokes, “on the heavy side.” She drops DS’s hair bows in favor of covering her mouth.

Dave just outright pouts, and honestly that makes it so much worse.

“I think he looks pretty,” Jane says gently, but this close you can hear the way her laughter squeaks against the roof of her mouth. “Right, Dirk?”

Roxy’s face is falling, and falling fast. DS kicks you, and when you don’t speak, he kicks you again. Those physical therapy hours are making him lethal, Jesus Christ, your poor fucking shin.

“Uh.” You run through a list of things you can say in your head. Raccoon, comes to mind. Badger, after it. “Yeah. Yeah, hot as fuck,” you manage. “For. For a girl.”

“Wow,” Dave says dryly, brows arching spectacularly above the shadow on his lids. His eyes pop like something out of a horror story, demon red, surrounded on all sides by charcoal. The dark lipstick, you think hysterically, does not suit him. “You did not need to no-hetero me, bro. You could have just said, ‘hey Dave you look hot as fuck I’m so jealous right now.’ And I’d go, I’d say, ‘no need to be jealous man, you’re the most stunning man with a crown braid I’ve ever seen in my entire life.’ ‘Oh thanks Dave that means a lot.’ ‘No problem dawg you know I got you’ -”

Roxy slaps her hand over his mouth before he can keep talking. “Okay, Davey, I think we all get the picture pretty dang well. Ro-Lal did a bombass job and everyone is jealous of everyone else.”

Dave says something else, muffled behind her hand, but you are not listening because you are trying to sink through the floor. Rose is staring between you and Dave with a grin like a shark, and you know that if she can’t corner you later, Dave’s dead fucking meat.

There’s a steady rap on the door, 4-4 time beat, and it cracks open. You should not be so amused to see Bro’s head pop in the door, hesitant, so completely the dad in a sitcom and he has no fucking clue.

“Pizza’s here,” he says, leans further in, mouth open to add something else. Then he sees all of you. DS with his hair bows and you and your braid, Dave, in general. You can see the exact moment he freezes, how his mouth clicks shut, face closing up, void of all expression.

“Hi, Bro,” Dave whispers. His mouth is open in a perfect “o”. With his lipstick smeared from Roxy’s hand, it is NOT a good look.

Bro gives a single nod. You can practically hear the joints in his neck creak. “Don’t get that shit on the floor,” is all he says, directed at you, and then he turns on heel and speeds out of sight.

Dave makes a sound in the back of his throat that might be a scream, might be a laugh, but you don’t take the time to comfort him. He’ll get over it. Anyway, pizza fucking awaits and all that.

“I’ll get it,” you tell them, hand DS the polish. “Can you handle your right hand?”

“I dunno,” DS says, voice strangled around a giggle. His eyes are wide, focused solely on how Dave seems to be having an internal meltdown.

“Okay,” you say, and give Jane a small smile when her hands slip from your hair as you stand. “Be right back, then.”

You’d be lying if you said your motives were purely food-based. There’s nothing wrong with pizza, of course. In fact, you actually really like it. Bread and cheese, what a novel concept, right? So you don’t care what’s on it, so you don’t mind if it’s a little burnt, or a little under-cooked. Pizza’s pretty much a universal constant for the picky eater. Or, in your case, the opposite. You still think the anchovies weren’t that bad.

So yes, pizza is great. In fact, you might say it’s your favorite food, if sweets don’t count.

But you are much more interested in seeing what Bro does after his intrusion.

You wander down the hall and into the living room, and not disappointing, there’s Bro, sitting on the futon, phone in his hand, mouth pressed into a thin line, tongue in his cheek as he taps away at warp fucking speed.

“Dave’s dying from embarrassment right now,” you say, and definitely don’t smirk when he not-quite jumps, shoulders tensing for just a moment, left arm moving in a jerky motion. It’s a good thing this dude’s got better control of his mouth than Dave, or you’d be fucking impaled right now, you’re almost certain. You think about your first night with him on the roof, and how you pulled your broken sword on him. Talk about embarrassment.

Bro glances over, realizes it’s just you, and sighs so hard you watch the tension leak out of all his muscles at once. God he’s got such bad fucking posture. Are you really like that? Do you really move your spine in such an ungodly fucking way? Oh my God, Dave was serious about you hunching in the corner. Jesus Christ.

“He ain’t got nothing to be embarrassed for,” Bro says, and he leans towards the table, pops open the pizza box all the way on the end. You wander over, fight a smile. Anchovy. “Except maybe that abysmal-ass makeup job. Kid’s way too pale to pull off such a dark color.”

You snort softly, plop down next to him on the futon. “That was Roxy’s doing. She gets a little carried away, sometimes.”

“I know,” he says, and between the drawl, you can hear the fondness in his voice. There are things in this world that you know, without a doubt, are universal constants (pumpkins, always, frogs, sometimes, your unwavering desire to make things better, unreasonably). And this you loves his Roxy just as much as you love yours, of this you are absolutely certain.

"Can I ask you a question?" You inch your hand towards the box. When he doesn't smack you away, you grab the biggest slice you can.

"I have a feeling you're going to regardless of what I say," Bro sighs, leaning back, closing his eyes. His phone buzzes, but he ignores it.

"I don't really feel the need to apologize for that." You shrug, matter-of-fact. Take a bite, talk around it because you know he won't care. "I am aware we are not the same goddamn person, insomuch that we are. However, if I am being presumptuous, and perhaps a little narcissistic, our similarities are far more plenty than our differences. If you were to ask me anything, I find I would be quite curious about what you had to say, from the perspective of someone who is me, and yet paradoxically, simultaneously, isn't."

"Okay, you caught me, you're so smart," he says, low and sarcastic and maybe a little defensive. It feels chillingly similar to the relationship between you and Hal. Stop. Squash that down. "So what the fuck do you want to know?"

 _What would YOU do if you saw your ex again? How do you apologize for something that was definitely your fault, without making it sound like you’re just prostrating yourself for the sake of your own loathing?_ Damn, has Bro even ever HAD an ex??

 "Have you ever been in an airplane?" you blurt, because of course you cannot get your shit together enough to tell him the truth.

He opens his eyes to stare at you blankly, and you realize you kinda just. You kinda just blew it, huh.

"Yes," he says, short, a little suspicious. "Why."

"I have never even seen a plane up close," you deflect, like a champion. "I find, despite my strengths, my lack of ability to control the situation, or the future of it, anyway, is putting me on edge, somewhat."

"Understatement," Bro says. Motherfucker reads you like a book. "So what, you think I can give you advice?"

"No," you snort. Well. "Maybe at least some tips on comfortable travel would be appreciated?"

 Bro stares and for a second you think he's going to make fun of you. Then he goes back to his phone. "Don't look out the window, buy some fucking ear plugs, and take a nap. Can't get much simpler than that."

"I can't -" you begin, frustrated. You scowl at him. "I can't just  _ignore_  my way out of this. What good will that do?"

Bro shrugs, digs his way into a different pizza box. "You asked. Best I can do."

"You suck at this," you tell him, put your chin in your hand. Take a lazy bite. "You know shit doesn't just go away because you want it to, right?"

"And  _you_ know that thinking yourself into circles doesn't do shit but bury you waist deep in the sand, ass-up," Bro scoffs.

"Please, if anyone of us has his head buried in the sand, it's you," you say, and you mean it, but you shouldn't say it, not to him, not right now.

"You don't know what the hell you're talking about," Bro says, and he puts on a good show but you know he's angry now, you can hear it in his voice, so even, so dangerously similar to your own. The tense lines of his shoulders, the twitch of a muscle in his jaw. There is a deadliness to that quiet anger, and you know it like the back of your hand.

You could fight him, here, easily. Could push and push until he punches you or you flee in fear or whatever other self-destructive bullshit you two are capable of. But you don't want to. You don't want to destroy this fragile connection in its (admittedly pathetic) infancy.

And neither does he, apparently, because his posture slackens, and he sags back into the futon. "I don't understand what you want from me," he mutters, rubs his eyes.

"I don't know," you admit on an exhaled breath. You move your idle hand to pick at a seam that's starting to curl off the corner. "Nothing, I guess. It's mostly selfish, on my part. Everyone else expects something from me. For me to be. To be a hero, or a prince, or a brother, or. I don't know. A lotta shit. Mainly my own views of others' expectations warped through a fetishistic narcissism, I suppose. But you don't expect anything from me." You tilt your head to look at him, shades to shades, as close to intimacy as you can get when you're both hiding yourselves. "I like that."

"You like that, so you insult me." He snorts softly. "Where have I heard that before."

He- ah. You crack a smile. "Rose finally got to you, huh?"

He grunts agreement, holds his hand out for the rest of your crust, like he knows you don't want it.

You hand it to him, reach for more pizza. "It was only a matter of time, I'm afraid. She's borderline bored to death of picking me apart, thought by thought. Makes sense she'd come for Dirk 1.0, next."

"Don't," he starts, and you actually see him wince a little, "call me that."

"Why not?" You can imagine exactly why the fuck not, but you know it isn't healthy, or sane, although you can understand that maybe it's just a little bit weird, hearing your own name from what is technically your own mouth.

Bro frowns at you, shoves the whole of your crust into his mouth so he doesn't have to answer. Fine. Be like that, then.

"You don't even like the crust," you accuse him, nibble at an anchovy.

"You don't have any proof of that," he says, spits crumbs all over his shirt. There are times where you can see Dave in Bro, habits Dave must’ve picked up from him, like the way he pops joints when he’s nervous or fidgeting, or now, when he shoves food into his mouth or does something else to deflect. You don’t entirely hate it. You are not necessarily more comfortable around Bro than you used to be, it's just that you have a rough idea of what to expect, and it's not much. There is an underlying, childish stubbornness to him that you know all too well, and it does nothing more than make you roll your eyes.

“What are you going to do when the Lalondes leave?” you ask instead, because it’s something you’ve been thinking about, and you’re pretty sure he won’t mind answering that.

Bro chews while he thinks, sighs out his nose and swallows. He cracks his knuckles, and you hide a smile. “Not sure, yet. Reckon we’re in better shape than we were, anyway. Might see if Dave’d like to visit New York for a bit.”

That makes your head jerk around, but Bro’s expression is calm, thoughtful. “You’d... let him?” you ask. “You’d want him to live with them?”

He sighs again, shrugs. Dude really just looks hells of tired all the time, huh? That's probably just your shit-ass curse. Bad sleeping habits and an overactive sense of self-loathing. “Both, if at all possible. Doesn’t have to be forever, ‘course. I don’t think it’d be fair to Rox for me to do that to her.” He looks down at his lap, and you see a little piece of yourself there, in the drop of his shoulders, the pinch of his lips. “I know I ain’t much, but she’s still got -” His hand flexes. “She’s got shit to work through, y'know. Dumping them on her forever, even if I wanted to? That would be fucked up, and sure as fuck wouldn't be responsible."

You can’t argue with that. Christ, you wouldn’t trust Bro with a lit candle and a dead fish, but with Mom’s recovery process hanging delicately in the balance, and no outside help, you can see where he’s coming from. “What about me?” you ask, unable to stop yourself.

It’s not that you’d mind visiting Roxy’s childhood home, certainly now that it’s no longer surrounded on all sides by pawns, and she isn’t lying dead on the floor there. But part of you feels. You don't know. Drawn here. This is your home, through and through. You wouldn’t want to leave. You’re comfortable, and you’ve never liked change. This was your bro’s apartment, too.

Bro looks up at you, eyebrows raised over the edge of his shades, like he hadn’t considered that. “What would you want to do?” It’s gentle, almost kind, like he actually gives a shit about what you want.

“I’m not -” you choke, suddenly feeling exposed, flounder at the center of his attention. “I’m not sure.”

"Hey, thought you were bringing the pizza back - aw, c'mon now, you're just out here eating it all with Bro? Seriously? Not fucking cool, dude."

You hadn't  _forgotten_ about Dave's makeover. You had just kind of. Mentally blocked it out. He comes around the corner and you and Bro let out a wheeze in unison.

You realize, belatedly, he was not running away in horror; he was running away because he was trying not to laugh.

Dave stands in the doorway, hands on his hips, frowning at both of you, shades still missing and shirt even more hilariously small now that he's standing. "Okay, this is just super fucking insulting now. What you're doing? That's offensive right there."

"Your lipstick is what's goddamn offensive," Bro says, but he's not even trying to hide a smile now. He swipes a slice of your pizza and then holds out one of the boxes to Dave. "Take 'em, so I don't gotta look at you with that shit smeared across your face."

"That wasn't my fault," Dave sniffs, but he walks across the room in such a jarringly confident way that the image you see doesn't match up how well you know him. You try really hard not to snicker when he lifts up the lid to see and wrinkles his nose. "Dude, fucking yuck. No taste, neither of you."

"Runs in the family," Bro says dryly, and then he flops back, adjusts his hat when it tries to bounce away.

"Offensive," Dave says again, jabbing a finger at him. You're glad to see them getting along, even if you can feel this kind of undercurrent of tension. Honestly though, you might be the one causing it.

You freeze when Dave turns on you, and without his shades you can see his expression soften a little. "Hey, you wanna help me carry these back? Girls're getting bored, and Dave made a huge fucking mess with the nail polish."

"That is literally the opposite of what I said to do," Bro monotones.

"Yeah," you say, ignore him, smile at Dave. You'll help clean up, and Bro knows it.

Dave grins, lopsided, and you see him under there, with the lipstick smeared across his cheek like he was attacked by a particularly persistent grandma, like in the movies you watched as a kid. He helps you stack up the boxes (four of them, Christ, is Bro trying to feed an army?) and make your way back to the room.

"Hey," Bro calls, right before you close the door.

You hesitate, turn back to him.

"Think about it," he says, and the set of his mouth is genuine, serious. "What you want to do."

You put a hand between Dave's shoulder blades when he protests, nudge him forward towards the bedroom. "I will," you say simply, and then it's like Bro was never even there at all.

What the fuck does he even do with his free time?

 

You do think about it, but it's not on the top list of your priorities right now.

There is misery in the car on the way to the airport, and this time you don't protest when Mom piles you all in the back. Dave stays home with Bro and DS, and they all say goodbye to Jane at the door.

She hugs both the Daves, squeezes them tight individually, and it's funny, almost, to watch the way she goes to hug Bro, like he really is just a big Dirk, before remembering herself, and you feel a surge of affection.

He offers a handshake instead, though you can see his mouth tick up at the corner. "A pleasure to meet you, Miss Crocker," he says, in his best mannered tone. "Thank you kindly." You know he's just putting on a show, but she giggles and almost curtsies at him and you don't want to embarrass her.

Still, in the car you and Roxy cling like a couple'a babies, squeeze her in the middle, holding a hand each.

"It'll be okay," she whispers to you at the gate, arms looped around your shoulders, standing on her tiptoes.

Still, you are bowed over her, and you don't cry, because it takes a lot, to make you cry, but you nod wordlessly, bury your nose in her hair like her first day here.

"You call as soon as you get home, Janey, you hear me?" Roxy draws her away from you, but doesn't make you let go of her hand. Her chin wobbles, and Jane sniffles in reply. It isn't long before you're mashed into the biggest, soggiest hug of your life, and then Jane's dad has a hand on her shoulder, and they're walking through the gate, and you have to say goodbye.

Mom drives back in relative silence, though she keeps glancing back in the mirror to look at you. You didn't ask to sit in front this time. You don't really care about the churning of your stomach. "Hey," she says softly, and when you both look at her, she smiles. "How 'bout some ice cream, huh?" She doesn't wait for you to reply, pulls off the highway at the next exit.

You try not to let panic rise in your chest, unfamiliar territory, just as bad every single time, try and keep your bearings, you aren't too far from the airport, maybe about a few miles from home, now. It's fine. Jesus, Dirk, get your shit together.

Roxy takes your hand in hers, and gives you a patient smile. You wonder when you became so bad at hiding yourself from her.

Still, you're kind of intrigued, watching Roxy and Momlonde together, as you follow them into the Ice cream parlor. You haven't really seen a lot of one-on-one with them. Rose is usually there as a barrier between you, shooing her out of the room before she can get too close. You know why, in a sense. You've seen Roxy drunk, you know how she is. But Mom hasn't had a drop, far as you can tell, and... Well. You don't know. You still just barely get Bro, what the fuck do you know?

"Dirk, sweetie?" Mom's voice is lower than Roxy's, a little throatier, and you jump to feel her hand on your shoulder. In heels, she's easily as tall as Dave, and barely has to look up when she gives you a patient smile. "What flavor do you want, dear?"

You get the distinct feeling, from the look on Roxy's face, that this is not the first time she has asked you, but neither of them mention it. "Uh," you say, flounder.  
"He ain't never had ice cream before, Mrs, uh, Lalonde, ma'am," Roxy says, haltingly.

Mom makes a face you rarely see on Roxy, not quite juvenile enough to be a pout, but not coarse enough to be proper irritation. "Roxy, darlin, I told you, you don't have to call me that. You can call me whatever you like."

Roxy looks uncomfortable, fidgets with the edge of her skirt. "Yeah I kno, it just feels weird, since I call my mom 'Mom', and you're me, and that'd be like calling Dave's bro 'Dirk' n stuff."

Mom taps her chin in such an exaggerated way it's hard to believe she's not a cartoon. "Hmm, I s'pose that's true." Her smile thins, and she reaches out and gives Roxy a soft little rub on the shoulder that would make you cringe, but doesn't seem to bother her. Guess Roxys are just genetically that touchy. Doesn't really surprise you, you've seen Dave. "We'll figure somethin out, 'kay?" And then she whirls on you, and that's Roxy's sparkling smile, all teeth and eyes that bunch with joy.

You take a small step back, put a little distance between you. This does nothing to deter her.

"You live in one of the hottest states in the continental US and you ain't never had ice cream? What has Dirk been doing to you poor kids?"

"We've," you choke, "been a little busy." It's a fair question, though you know the answer. You still aren't much for leaving the house, and besides your weird family outings, you still prefer drifting between home and the hotel room. Familiarity, you suppose. Wow, you're literally like an old man stuck in his ways.

Mom sighs, deflates a little. "Okay, well you like sweets, right? I know just the thing for you."

You do not ask her why she knows about your apparently now widespread love of sweets, though in your defense you did specifically say that you loved Jane's cakes, and very little else.

You must be staring like a dumbass, because Roxy grabs your hand, leans over and whispers, "It's best not to question it. She knows all sorts of shit like that, I think it's a big adult super power."

You snort softly, squeeze her fingers in yours. You will never admit to the way she grounds you, how you're hyper aware of the fact that there's only one exit, how many people are squeezed into the small space, desperate to get out of the Texas heat. "You don't figure maybe it's just the adults who are ectobiologically us, and we happen to be super fucking weird?"

"Hmm, that too," Roxy says, and she drags you over to a little table in the corner, where you can keep your back to the wall and have a clear view of the door. God, she really is just the best fuckin' gal you know. You squeeze her hand again and she gives you an amused smile. "You ain't as hard to read as you think, Mr. Tough Guy."

"Yeah," you say around a shaky sigh. "I'm starting to get that."

Roxy frowns, nudges you. "We'll see Jane again real soon, Dirk, s'okay. Planes aren't so bad! I had a lot of fun!"

You try to smile, but it feels more like a grimace. Why did she have to bring up the fucking plane? "Dunno how to tell you this, but you always have fun."

She gasps dramatically, shoves you. "Lies and deceit!! I am just out here trying to fucking live life to it's fullest goshdarn potential! Do not smear my good and powerful name!"  
You bite the inside of your cheek to keep yourself from grinning. "Wouldn't dream of it."

She gives you that weird slashy face again, drops her elbow onto the table. "Have you considered talking to Dave about it? All serious like?"

You think about the last time you and Dave spoke, "all serious like". You think of him kneeling on the floor in his own vomit, the embarrassing fucking way you touched his face. "I don't think he and I are quite ready for that, Rox."

Roxy tilts her head, curls falling to the side, and she reminds you of Dave, of Rose's needling curiosity. God, you really are turning into a fucking family. "Why not? Rose and I talk about everything! We're like, irl sisters now, all legit and shit. Did you think those big and lil sibby remarks were JOKES, Strider? Please, we're tighter than Jane's ass on a Saturday night out on the town."

Momlonde pops up before you can speak, juggling two cones and a small cup of something orange. "Okay, I definitely missed something here, but let's watch the language in front of all these kiddies." She doesn't sound mad, though, just amused, and she hands Roxy one of the cones. "Here, eat quick, Dirk's getting all worried 'bout you guys."

"I absolutely refuse to believe that," you snort, because the idea of Bro worrying about either you or Roxy enough to bug Mom is both slightly embarrassing and also extremely unrealistic.

Mom outright smirks at you, wiggles her eyebrows. "Wanna bet?" You frown, uncertain now, but she just laughs, pushes the cup across the table to you. "Here, Baby Dirk, try this. Orange sherbet, couldn't get more stereotypical if I tried."

You grab it, take the proffered spoon. You know what fucking ice cream is, obviously. You've seen movies, you've heard Jane talk about the ice cream truck a hundred times, and you know it's supposed to be something all little kids scream for. Still, you aren't really ready for how cold, and how fucking good it really is. "Holy fuck," you whisper.

"Nailed it," Mom whispers, puts her fist up.

Roxy bumps it, grinning so wide her face I practically split in two. "Such a Dirk," she whispers.

"Suuuch a Dirk," Mom laughs.

You are being made fun of, here, but you don't really care, because you have just discovered orange sherbet, and you love it.

"Can I see ur texts with Big Dirk?" Roxy asks while you devour the entire cup. You don't know why they didn't get you a cone. You might've liked it, could have eaten it, and Roxy seems happy about it, anyway.

Mom grins again, and it's all Rose, devilish, conspiratorial. She slides her phone across the table, and curious, you lean over. You're intrigued to see both of them appear to have changed their chum handles, although you don't think you'd be brave enough to ask Bro for his. Or what you'd even talk about, if you did.

TT: hey.  
TT: where are you guys.  
TT: roxy. seriously it's been a fucking hour.  
TT: i know it don't take that long to drop off one kid and their uptight dad at the airport.  
TG: Awww Dirk u know I wouldnt do nothing to them!!  
TG: Theyre fine were getting ice cream becos they were sad! Dont u worry ur sweet lil buns hun well be home before u know it!!!  
TT: i ain't fucking worried.  
TT: kids're starting to get restless, that's all.  
TG: Ohhhhh I totally believe you Mr Big Stoic and Nasty!!  
TG: Got me all shakin in my booties here  
TG: Hey by the way A why the fuck havent u ever bought our goddamn kids ice cream  
TG: And B what kind do you think Lil Dirk would like??  
TT: are you fucking kidding me right now.  
TG: No!!! This is so dang serious!!  
TT: this is so fucking stupid, is what it is.  
TG: Come onnnn play along  
TG: What kind of ice cream does Big Dirk like? I bet I know lol  
TT: why should i even tell you.  
TG: Its orange sherbet isnt it  
TG: OMG It totally is!!  
TT: fuck off, roxy.  
TT: put it in a cup, no cone.  
TG: You are so fucking predictable <3

It is so fucking clear how much of you and Roxy leaks through here, and you are so goddamn embarrassed you want to die.

Roxy does not share this sentiment, because she's too busy aww'ing. "It's like watching a weird mix between you and Dave," she snickers, elbowing you.

You huff, try to hunch in hopes they can't see your ears burning. "Hardly. It's like he's a cardboard version of me, if anything."

"Aww, don't be too hard on him," Mom says, tugging her phone back into her purse. "He's really goofy when he feels like it!" She frowns thoughtfully. "Or he used to be, anyway. We fell out of touch for awhile, there."

You know that's an understatement, but you're not going to bring it up, because seeing any version of Roxy cry again is not on your list of things to do today. You put your spoon down, pick at the edge of the table, try to figure out a good way to bring this up. "Have you, uh, figured out how to tell him? About Washington?"

"No," she admits, sighs. "Honestly, I'm worried I'll tell him I bought him a ticket an' he'll flee the fucking state." She slaps her hands over her mouth. "You didn't hear me say that!!"

"Ms. Lalonde, Roxy and I are sixteen fucking years old," you say, amused. It's kind of funny how hard she tries (she's not very good at it).

"Nooo, that's not the point, I'm supposed to set a good example!"

"I think it doesn't count since ur not actually our parental unit," Roxy says, clearly enjoying this too much. You know she's been trying to get Mom to swear at almost every turn.

"That's.... sort of true," Mom says slowly, and then she gasps. "Obviously I'm not your Momma, right? But!! If you and Rose are like sisters, maybe she and I could be, too! What if you call me Aunt Ro-Lal? Would that be alright with u?"

Roxy's face softens in a way she usually saves for Rose. "Yeah, I -" Her hands twist together in her lap, but aside from blinking a little too fast, looks happier. "I think I'd like that okay."

"Bitchin'," Mom says, and then slaps both hands over her mouth. "Oh noooo!!"

  
"So what will you do?" you ask in the car on the way home. You finally concede to sitting up front, even though it feels weird to leave Rox in the back. She doesn't seem to mind, though, clinging to the frozen to-go containers.

"Hmm." Mom chews on her cone. "Tranq him," she says slowly. "Trap him, release him."

That startles an almost laugh at of you, and you're not even entirely offended when Mom and Roxy high-five between the seats.

 

It's been three days since Jane left, and you are no closer to figuring out what to do, or what to say, or how the fuck you're going to handle flying, and how Mom is going to tell Bro about the trip, because she hasn't yet, and you can tell she hasn't, because Bro is watching you and Dave pack while eating a power bar and looking entirely bored with the whole thing.

"You could help, you know," DS snaps at him, dragging some of the clothes he's collected over the past few months (some of his old pants, too short, and shirts you never wear, fine but a little holey) into his suitcase haphazardly. The three of you are currently sharing, due to your lack of a case at all, and the fact that most of their clothes are more fit for a preteen than for a bigass sixteen-year old.

Bro shrugs, takes another bite. He's hovering an awful lot for someone who pretends not to care.

Dave throws a shoe at his head, and he catches it, tosses it back. Dave dodges, but he ducks his head to hide a smile.

You don't speak, because you're afraid you're going to blurt something stupid, or tell him before Mom is ready, or something. You don't know. You continue gently rolling your shirts in hopes of efficiency. You've never packed a suitcase before, but Jane told you she'd give you some pointers if you had trouble.

"Do you want mine?" Bro says after a minute, but he's looking at you.

"Uh." You look at DS, look at Dave. They both jerk their heads slightly, please God no. "No, I. Don't need it. I don't reckon Dave or Dave really have much in the way of clothes to bring, so the only person takin' up room in there'll be me, anyway."

Goddammit.

Bro inhales, exhales through his nose heavily, and then stomps off down the hall. God you really fucked that up.

"It's okay, he kinda deserved it," DS tells you lightly, reaches across to give you a pat on the knee.

"I cannot fucking believe he didn't kill you," Dave whispers, and he sounds kind of impressed. You just feel guilty.

"Nah, he's got a soft spot for Dirk, it's hilarious," DS says, and you feel uncomfortably exposed, and a little hot in the face.

"He doesn't," you say in lame defense. "I think he's just trying to make me feel less like a complete idiot than I actually am."

"Hey," Dave murmurs, and instead of getting up, like a normal human, he rolls across the carpet until he can wrap his arms around your waist. "You're not an idiot, dude. Bro's completely inscrutable. Who the fuck knows what that guy's even thinking?"

"I feel like I should, though," you mumble. You pull your fingers through the hair that sticks up on the back of his head lightly, and when he doesn't flinch, you comb a little more, try to smooth it flat.

"Nah," Dave says, voice muffled against your stomach. "It's not your job, Dirk. I like you the way you are. You don't need to be a Bro translation device on top of everything else."

"Okay," you say, but it feels pretty shitty.

You hear him coming, but neither of the Daves do, because when Bro comes back, drops a bright orange suitcase on the floor by the bed, both of them jump a foot in the air.  
"What the absolute FUCK, Bro?" DS yelps, and you're almost amused, seeing him look so scandalized, rather than pantshittingly terrified.

Bro just shrugs, squats down and flips it open. He pulls out what looks like a couple old socks and a bright pink t-shirt, which he quickly balls up in his hand and tucks in his pocket.

It hangs out, though, and you're kind of just staring at it, because no way in fuck that would fit him, not in a million years.

"S'kinda old, now," he says, sounding completely uninterested as he pulls out a shitty-looking smuppet with the leg falling off, some paperwork, and a water bottle. "Haven't used it in a real long time. But it should work just fine. Use it for whatever, I guess."

Call you crazy, but there is something extremely fucking familiar about that dirty orange smuppet, almost bald with a few whisps of yellow hair, one of the eyes missing. Huh.

"Who the fuck's shirt is that?" Dave demands, pointing like a little kid.

Bro stares, sighs through his nose. "Story for another time, kiddo."

"You suck," Dave says dryly.

"I know," Bro says, and then he flashsteps away with all his old shit in tow, leaving the small orange suitcase behind.

You're a little disappointed; you were really interested in that smuppet.

 

It's Sunday, you're supposed to leave on Thursday, and you're doing laps in the hotel while DS drifts around the shallow end. Mom brought him over after his therapy session today, and he agreed to come down with you, but he doesn't seem to be having much fun.

You like the pool, as much as you can, with the sting of the chlorine, and how it goes up your nose if you forget yourself. Water has pretty much always been calming to you, and the bane of your existence, from the moment you landed on Earth, drifting along clinging to Cal like some kind of miniature Tom Hanks. It's what lulled you to sleep at night, what reminded you of how trapped you were, the desperation of your situation.

(You wonder, errantly, if the others had refused to play with you, would you have been brave enough to attempt the Game alone?)

But you like the burn in your muscles when you work hard, the gratification of a job well done, how all the thoughts in your head don't bother you so much while you're under, nothing but the feel of the water between your fingers, how you cut through it in such straight, perfect lines.

You surface next to Dave and he only jumps a little. "Sorry," you say on automatic. "You look tired. You wanna head up?" Honestly, he mostly just looks miserable, and you're too crippled emotionally to bring it up without sounding like a jackass.

Your relationship with DS is more tentative than yours and Dave's, and you're not entirely sure how to rectify it. You guess Dave has the advantage of literally unloading all his hang-ups with Bro on you, and it's not something you can really ask DS to do. You don't really want to, if you're being blunt, and the shit he dealt with in the Game makes the defensive layer he protects himself with a little harder to permeate. You can't tell if it's him, or you, or a bit of both.

Still, he doesn't hide himself from you, sighs, shoulders sagging. "Nah, I ain't. I ain't tired, really. Just..." He mumbles something you don't hear, arms folded over the edge of the pool.

You nudge at him lightly. "Can't understand you when you're mumbling, dude."

He groans, bangs his head on the concrete. "It's dumb. Dirk, it's so fuckin' dumb."

"It ain't dumb," you say, put one of your feet on the ladder to rest there. "C'mon, I won't tell Rose, I promise. No umprompted psychoanalysis on my watch. Like my watch is so tight, not a single brother, mother, dog, or cat is getting trapped in an unwarranted Lalonde barrage, s'long as Dirk the goddamn lifeguard is here to protect all your asses."

"Keeping our asses straight outta the hands of lipsticked sisters who all be wanting up in these melons. Like, actual metaphorical versions of those deep sea-space nightmares she's obsessed with."

"Yeah," you say, pillow your head on your arms. "But she was actually a little bit right about that."

"Ugh, don't remind me," he groans. "Look, the less I ever have to think about horror terrors whispering to me in my sleep, or Derse, or Cal? Ever again? The better."

"Mm, for sure," you say, even though a piece of you still aches for your Cal. "So what's up? What's got The Dave Strider all in a tizzy?"

"I'm more A Dave Strider," he says with a sardonic half-smile you remember on Bro's face. _You don't, though. Care about me._ "But I sure as fuck am in a goddamn tizzy."

"Let it loose, dawg," you drawl, reach out a hand to lightly bump your knuckles against his. "You can tell me anything, bro."

"Dunno about anything," Dave says, sighs hard. "It's just..." He lifts up at his head, squints at his hands. You'll never get used to his eyes, not quite yours, not quite Dave's, not his own. You wonder if you'd have that disconnect, were you to have come back from being a sprite, red layered over the entirety of your being. Can't be easy on him, fuck. You could barely handle a little soda can in your hair.

"I keep thinking about the whole thing with Jade," he says, and you go very quiet, and very still.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I know it's dumb. I know she doesn't remember." He looks at you, dark eyebrows all bunched up, frustration, a little resentment. "No one else remembers."

That's not entirely true, though to be fair to him, it mostly is. There are little splinters of memories here and there, none of them good. Overwhelming failure, pixels grasped in your hands like shards of glass. You don't bring that up.

"But I have the memories, I know it happened. John knows it happened. But I can't just be like 'oh yeah, here's a list of things we did. Don't believe me? That's fine, just ask him!'" He curls into himself again, legs swishing half-heartedly below the surface. "John's the only one who still called me Dave, after everything. And he doesn't even really fucking like me that much."

"That's not true," you say, lay a hand on his shoulder delicately. "Besides me 'n Dave, he's pretty much the only person you talk to, yeah?"

"Yeah," he snorts, glances at you nervously. "And Jane, now, sometimes."

You give him a shitty little grin. "Dave, I'm not gonna kill you for trying to make friends." You put on your most serious frown. "But if you try to snipe my number one friend spot from me, legal action will be required."

He actually laughs at that, low and breathy. "Okay, okay, I'll lay off on my bffl proposals, for now."

"Damn right," you huff. Kick your feet to swim around the other side of him, dry off your hands and reach for your phone. It hasn't been more than an hour since you came down, and you're surprised DS has lasted this long. "You know, it's okay if she doesn't remember, dude. Like, everything. I think it's okay for you to tell her some of the shit." You think about that, add, "Maybe not like, the really gooey romantic shit, or the parts where you fucked up, you've done that enough, but." He winces. "But the cool shit, like the sleepovers? Movie nights and stuff? Totally cool."

"But I don't want her to think I want to date again," he anguishes. "Because I'm not - ugh." He hugs himself a little. "It's not even just because of the sprite shit, like I get I'm kind of a universe fuckup, and that Dave's right there, you know? But the other stuff. Like, how bad I was feeling, and how she and John never really brought any of that up? That shit was fucked, dude." He drops his eyes. "I don't want to go back to that."

And god, you get it. You do, to a point. Even if you actually WERE the toxic element, you understand. You make a strong decision and drift over, wrap your arms over him. "Its okay, Dave. To not know. And to be afraid. I'm scared, too. Of Jake, and not knowing what to say. But I'll be there, if you want me to be."

"Dirk, dude," he laughs, gives your arm a little squeeze to keep you there, "I kinda always want you to be."

 

Eventually, Mom does have to fucking tell him.

You just kinda wish maybe she hadn't waited until the day before you were due to leave? And maybe hadn't done it while Dave was at physical therapy? And maybe not while you and Dave were home (Rose and Roxy were at the hotel packing - chronic procrastinators, the both of them, no surprise there) without anywhere to hide but the bedroom.  
They've been fighting for ten minutes now, ever since they came back from dropping off DS.

You hear the aggressive slam of the kitchen cabinets, hushed voices raised just enough above a whisper that you can tell they're unfriendly.

You feel like you need to. You don't know. Stop them? Try to explain to Bro? Justify why Mom won't let him stay behind? That he's still a huge fucking mess that no one trusts as far as they can throw (and Jesus fuck, you bet Mom could toss him across a football field).

It's bad enough that you've been obsessing over this trip for the past week, but you're getting really fucking tired of cleaning up the mess versions of you and Roxy made.

You move to roll off the bed, but Dave stops you, hand on your wrist, the other holding his phone. You can see a conversation with Rose open. That's. Probably good? Your heart is slamming in your ears, the urge to go, to fight, to take flight, all mixed up in your head with two days of no sleep, hysteria on high like the fucking circus is in town.

"Don't," he whispers. His eyes are wide behind his shades, his lips pressed together in a thin line. Dave has never seen his brother fight with anyone before, you realize, and it doesn't surprise you. It took a helluva lot to upset you enough to yell at anybody, and this isn't a movie, it's not a sitcom where everyone makes up at the end, and you don't know what to say to him.

"I just want to check," you murmur, try to free yourself. You tug lightly, but he tightens his grasp, and it almost irritates you, the way his fingers close around your wrist with such ease, the way it reminds you you're still just a shitty kid with rail thin limbs and a big ego.

"No," he says, louder. "Dirk, please. Not right now. I don't - please."

It's hard, for you. To say no to Dave, to stop him from bossing you around or stop yourself from bowing to his every wish like you're a genie in a lamp, and he's prince fucking Ali.

So even though your body shakes, trembles with exhaustion and adrenaline, you shift back down, so you're facing him, his hand on yours, your breath unsteady. When you speak, it's a strained whisper, the fight of your lips against the chatter of your teeth. "What do you want me to do?"

He shrugs pathetically, presses his face into the pillows. "I don't know. Wait with me?"

You don't answer, but you nod, tuck your free arm behind your head and lie there in bed and try not to panic. Will your breath to even out. Nothing is going to happen. You're pretty sure nothing will happen. And even if it does, if Roxy is anything like Mom, she can handle Dave's bro. What would you even do out there, anyway?

Dave doesn't let go of your wrist, and you try not to think about how much he must not trust you, tilt crane your neck to stare at the Midnight Crew poster over your heads, think about your Stiller and Wilson posters. Kinda fucked up how history just erased them entirely. Couldn't they have left you fucking  _anything_?

"What did you  _think_ was going to happen, Dirk?" comes from between thin walls, and you hear the distant rumble of his quiet reply.

The front door slams after that, and you both hear Mom curse, and Dave can't quite hold back a tiny laugh.

"She really is trying too hard, huh?"

"She shouldn't bother," you manage, between a smile and a snicker. "You shoulda seen her in the ice cream parlor. She's just as bad a Roxy."

"Yeah," Dave says, and he finally lets you go, reaches under his shades with both hands to press on his eyes. "Should we. Should we check it out? See if the coast is clear?"

You can tell he doesn't really want to. Dave's not a very confrontational person. It doesn't usually bother you, but you've had a long fucking week, stressing out about this exact thing, and if you sit still one more goddamn minute you're going to explode.

Still you try to be gentle with him, squeeze his hand, pat him on the hair the way you've seen Roxy and Rose both do. "I'll go, Dave. You can stay here if you want. Won't be more'n a minute, I swear."

"No," Dave says, and he grabs the back of your shirt, then your arm, somehow manages to wrap his entire upper torso around it.

"Dave," you sigh, and it's all your aggravation, the end of your patience. You shake your arm, but if anything, he clings tighter. "C'mon, dude. Do you really want to be stuck in a small-ass space with him when he's acting like this?"

"No," he says again, presses his face against your arm. "I didn't mean - no, I can go with. I'm just really goddamn sick of letting you clean up everything like you think you've got some kind of responsibility for all the fucked up shit that goes down."

Okay well. He's kinda got you there. You struggle for something to say that doesn't sound condescending or dickish.

"Heh," he says, headbutts you in the tattoo. "Can't think of a smart guy comeback for that one, huh?"

"No," you admit softly, feel a little sheepish. You don't know what to do with your body in this situation so you just kind of. Stand there. Look away, try not to fall into a pattern of your own self-loathing (you can always do that later, when you can't sleep, and now's not really the time). "Sorry. I'm kinda used to shouldering a lot of shit by myself. If for no reason other than I am a giant fucking megalomaniac. I know I -"

"You get carried away," he interrupts, drops off your arm and rolls to his feet. "And you don't know how to knock it off. I know. But you ain't gotta do that shit anymore." He offers you a hand, and a fragile smile. "It's not a crime, asking for help, you know."

"I," you choke, reach for him. "I know."

He raised his eyebrows. " _Do_ you?"

You have to stop yourself from pulling away, going on the defense. "I'll try harder," you promise, a little half-hearted.

He just laughs softly, drags you into a hug, and you let yourself drape your arms over his shoulders, go a little limp. "Dirk, your head? Is a big fucking mess, dude."

"I know," you groan, press your face into his shoulder. "I really am sorry. About - just. Everything."

"I know," he sighs, presses his fingers along your spine. "Now c'mon, I'm being a big boy now, putting on my Pampers pull-ups all by myself. My days of shitting the bed are over. Let's fucking. I dunno. Go yell at Bro or something, I guess."

"Okay, okay," you laugh, and follow him out of the room. God, you're really fucking grateful to have a Dave Strider in your dumbass life.

  
Mom is muttering to herself as she packs a suitcase in the living room, folding white shirts and some you've never seen before. "Ungrateful," she grunts, tossing in a pair of balled up socks. "Stupid, stubborn, giant fucking -"

"Hey, Mom," Dave says blandly, strolls in with his hands shoved in his pockets like he doesn't have a care in the goddamn world. Your brother is good at posturing, you'll give him that.

"Oh," Mom sniffs, and she's not crying, but you can see that she's trying very hard not to look cross, and wow you really just thought  _'cross'_   like she's some kind of school teacher or some shit. What the fuck is this, Matilda? "Hey, Dave, sweetie. You don't need to worry about me or nothin', I'm fine. Your dad is just being a big stubborn jerk."

"Probably has nothing to do with the fact that you waited until the day before we leave to tell him, haha." Dave's words are not particularly kind, but he has a way of saying them that makes them come across as something closer to a joke.

"Well," Mom chuckles, shrugs. "You know how he gets about airplanes."

Uhh. What?

They both look at you.

You feel extremely uncomfortable, and against your will, your palms start to sweat.

Mom just offers you a pinched a smile. "I was a bit worried he'd get too far if I told him in advance."

"Which way did he go?" you sigh, as if you don't already have a pretty goddamn good idea.

"Let me guess," Dave drawls, and they both point up at the same time, share a grin at his expense, and yours, you guess. "We'll take care of it," he says, waves off Mom when she opens her mouth. "Seriously, Mom. I'll like. Beg him or whatever, it'll be fine."

It will NOT be fine, you think hysterically, but you follow him.

Dave gets out of the apartment, door closing, before he collapses against it, drags in air through his mouth.

Yeah, you pretty much thought so. "Dave," you say, touch his shoulder.

"S'fine," he grunts, bangs his head back against the wood. "Just. Don't know what to say to him, I guess."

You think about sitting in the pool with DS, his arms folded together, eyes downcast.

"I'll be there," you say, but it's all too lame.

"Yeah," he mumbles, shakes his hands to dislodge some of the anxiety. "Yeah, right let's, uh. Let's go up there, then."

  
Bro is on the roof ledge, just like he always seems to be, and your stomach clenches as you think, _Just one more step and he'd fall to the ground._ He wouldn't, you're sure he wouldn't, but fuck if it isn't unsettling, seeing him stand there.

You're used to Bro smoking as an escape now, but Dave looks a little mesmerized, like he can't quite believe it, tiptoeing across the roof like he thinks he can sneak up on him.

"You're about as subtle as an elephant, kid," Bro says, and Dave spooks a bit.

"How the fuck does he always do that," he mutters, and then pretty much stomps the rest of the way, with you trailing after. "Can you not stand there like you're about to jump, you're freaking me out." You'll give it to Dave: he's honest.

Bro's head drops back as he looks up, and then rolls his neck to glare at both of you. "Can y'all not crawl up my ass for five fuckin' seconds?"

"If someone didn't, you'd be halfway across Texas right now," Dave snorts. "Now get the fuck down."

Bro sighs, and he drops in a jumble of limps, legs over the edge, but ass planted safely away from the verge. "Better?"

"Good e-fucking-nough, I guess." Dave hops up and then after hesitating a second, sits next to Bro. You take the place beside him. It's not that you're not interested, because you are. It's just that the relationship between them feels so fragile sometimes, so tenuous, and you're afraid your presence will fuck it up.

His brother takes a deep drag, blows out a cloud of smoke, carefully facing away from Dave. Heh. "This about your mom and her shitty plan?"

"You can't really think we'd be cool, leaving you here on your own," Dave says slowly. Like he's almost shy to be so genuine in front of Bro.

"I'm a big boy, I can take care of myself. Unlike a certain someone who still legally needs a guardian to drive him to Taco Bell."

"Hey, fuck you!" Dave actually reaches out and shoves him, and you smile when Bro rocks lightly, bounces back.

"Ow," he monotones.

"Dude, come on," he wheedles. "Just let her mom you. You know Dave'll flip if you say you're not going."

"Dave needs to stop hovering," he grunts, but he's getting defensive. You can see the way his spine curls in a little, how a line pulls at the corner of his mouth.

"What if you have a seizure," Dave whispers, and you feel like a voyeur here, for how small his voice is, how vulnerable.

Bro actually stops at that, turns to look at him, then you. "We don't actually know if the meds're helping. Or if whatever the Crocker kid did fixed me up right as rain."

"But what if it didn't," you say, and mentally kick yourself. It's not your conversation, Dirk. You're just here for moral support. "In the Game, she could only bring someone who was truly dead back one time, outside the realm of godtier revitalization. And then..." They're both staring at you, now, so you drop your eyes to your hands.

Dave bumps his hand against one of yours, and out of the corner of your eye, you see him turn to Bro. "This is really fucking embarrassing, so I'm only gonna say it once. Bro, please, for my sake, and Mom's, and Dave's. Or even just like. As a general courtesy to your shitty puppet porn fans, please don't stay. Please come with us."

You do peek at Bro, then, turn your head just enough to see the whole of his expression.

It's almost like that night on the roof, when you thought he might really jump, eyebrows up, mouth parted. He's not used to looking vulnerable, and you both know it.  
He closes it off faster than you can blink, seals it away in his Huge Dickhead vault. But he stubs out his cigarette, climbs to his feet.

Dave reaches out in a panic, grabs his pant leg like a child.

"Fine," Bro finally says, voice curt, not nearly as emotionless as you both like. "But you say one word to your mom about Crocker only being able to heal me once, and I'll test your death-defying god bullshit myself."

It's an empty threat, but still a threat, and Dave just nods meekly, lets go of his bro.

Bro wipes a hand down his face, sighs hard. "Christ, you boys're lucky I fucking..."

He cuts himself off, but you can imagine exactly what he was going to say, and based on the smile growing on Dave's face, you guess he can, too.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the end! you made it!  
> i hadn't planned on the adults having any pesterlogs, but here we are. they use black for simplicity's sake, and because they are Adults(tm)  
> Also, Dirk's really hard on himself about his relationship with Jake, and I definitely don't agree that it was even remotely "all his fault". However, since it's his chapter, his rules! Poor guy just needs some help 8(  
> PS there will be a second Dirk chapter after this, but it was getting so long I decided I needed to split it in two LOL  
> Hope y'all enjoyed it!


	18. pedantic pageantry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirk rides a plane! He and Bro get in a shitty fight.  
> One step forward, two steps back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw Bro is a massive dick, Dirk is kind of a dick back. They're both being way too dramatic.

The airport is already your own personal hell. Dropping off Jane had been a cacophony of noise and people and even expecting it did nothing to prepare you for the exact size of the complex, and how many people could fit inside it. And sure, you did it, and sure, you’d do it again. But moving in a large group? Is such a huge fucking nightmare, and you are in agony.

It’s still early, Dave assures you, it can get so much worse, but your head is on a swivel, tracking familiar paths, trying to learn new routes, and making sure not a single one of these assholes leaves your sight.

Bro is actually the one who notices, god fucking help you. He waits until your little group stops at the information desk and you’re counting heads before he knocks into your suitcase with his own, spooks you almost a foot straight in the air. He leans down to put a hand over where you grip the handle, white-knuckled and trembling, and his voice is low by your ear. “Knock it off.”

“I’m not -” you start, bite your tongue. _I'm not doing anything._ You’re not, you’re not, you just. You aren’t sure how to - you’re not doing anything.

“You don’t need to babysit them,” Bro says, and he’s prying your hand free from the suitcase, uncurls your fingers like your strength means nothing to him. It drops to the floor, and both Mom and Rose turn at the noise, but he waves them off, ignores your glare. “They aren’t ducklings, you ain’t Mother Goose, and even if you were, no one would trust you to be in charge. Lalonde ‘n I are right here. You think she’d let me outta her sight for a fucking minute? Relax.” He bends at the knees, picks up the case, and sets it upright beside you. “And if you can’t relax, at least take a fucking chill pill.”

You think of a hundred nasty things you could say to him, right then and there. How he doesn’t want to do this any more than you do, how he doesn’t care about you anyway, fuck off, what does he know? How he seems to care positively for so little in his life you’re surprised he even has the energy for hobbies.

But you don’t get that far, because suddenly, Bro isn’t beside you anymore, Roxy is, hands empty, and Dave is now holding both his own suitcase, as well as hers, looking baffled, then a little annoyed, and finally upon seeing you, resigned.

“Yo,  Mini-Roxy,” Bro says, points at her. “You’re officially on idiot duty until we board. Keep his panties from crawling so far up his ass the cavity search team calls in backup. Comprende?”

Roxy just laughs, delighted, and grabs your hand in hers. “Yes sir, Mr. Strider sir.” She gives him what is very obviously a _WONK_ , which he does not appreciate.

He turns heel and quickly makes his way to the other side of Mom, and you choke on a laugh; he’s hiding behind her.

  
Boarding with DS is. Well. You’re not him, so you don’t know, but he doesn’t look like he’s having any fucking fun. You’re pretty sure the process would have taken twice as long except for the fact that Bro, standing beside him with his arms crossed, looks so fucking menacing they don’t want to put up a fight. (DS looks about ready to sink through the floor or just outright cry when they show up with a transfer seat, but Bro genuinely puts a hand on his shoulder, and you watch him relax, just a fraction. You’re pretty sure you just watched some real goddamn affection happen right before your eyes.)

His chair is tucked neatly into the little closet at the front, and you only notice because you are currently counting the seats and storage spaces, wondering if you crawled into one and fucking _died_ , if it’d be more comfortable than being sandwiched into this hell pod.

Bro’s head nearly brushes the ceiling, and when he ducks into the seat closest to the window, you think about just booking it, right there. You cannot fucking do this.

But Dave’s hand is on your wrist, and he guides you in, murmuring soft encouragement, nudging you in the knees. You wonder if he can hear your thoughts, if you and Bro are less of a threat with him preventing your escape. You stand there, awkwardly bowed in the cramped space, and consider the repercussions of bodily throwing yourself towards the door.

DS is up at the front with Mom, Rox, and Rose, and he keeps looking back at you and Dave with an expression that spells  _"k_ _ill me."_

You jump a little when a rough hand drags you down into your seat.

“Sit down, you look like an idiot,” Bro mutters, but he’s not looking at you, free hand over his mouth, staring out the window. His left leg is starting to shake violently, and you note how his knees bump up against the chair in front of him. He’s going to get you both in a lot of trouble that way, you can see it now.

The pilot announces you’re about to watch a shitty little video on your fancy chairs, and when the plane starts to move on the tarmac, you grab both armrests, Bro and Dave’s hands included, and you do not fucking breath until you are in the air.

It isn’t fun. Roxy was wrong, it isn’t fun. You are not having fun. Your ears pop, like when you’d dive too deep into the ruins, desperate for one more look, just one more clue of humanity’s presence, anything at all, and you breathe just about as well, keep your eyes trained on the floor, your beatup sneakers,  the off-beat shake of your foot against Bro’s.

You feel the plane even out before they say anything, and it’s a dip in your stomach, the same shift under your feet as your rocketboard, but 100 times bigger. You hear the pilot speak between the blood roaring in your ears and when Bro shrugs you off, you grab your knees. Okay. Alright. Okay, okay, it’s fine. You’re fine. You can breathe. You’re not dead (but that’d be easier, you think hysterically). You’re fine. Alive. It’s fine.

You wonder if you could set up a kind of transport system between your home and Roxy’s with the fenestrated windows, and then create a relay between the others from there. Maybe if Jade figured out her powers, she could change the size. Wouldn’t need to be as big as a plane and no, no, we’re not thinking about the plane, we’re focusing on other things. All things. Anything else.

Bro reaches over you, jars you out of your thoughts, and you choke a little at the close contact. He smells like pine needles and the off-brand detergent that used to be stacked sky-high under your kitchen counters growing up. It’s almost comforting, in a totally self-involved way. His voice rumbles in his chest when he speaks, and you cannot say you dislike it. You might sounds like that someday, holy shit.

You tune them out for a minute, wipe the sweat off your hands and on your knees, and start when you see him looking down at you. Because you weren’t just totally being a creep, Jesus dicks what the fuck is wrong with you.

“Want anything?” he asks again, without prompting. He looks a little impatient.

“Just get him water,” Dave grouses, snatching Bro’s wallet and shoving a wad of bills at the flight attendant.

Bro grunts, but drops the water into the your lap as he flops back in his seat, holding a single cup of ice and an entire bottle of whiskey. You and Dave watch as he proceeds to down like half of it in one go, pull his hat over his eyes, and fold himself so small into his seat you can barely believe he fucking fits.

You. Guess he’s just doing that, then. You had been curious why he picked the window seat, when you’re pretty sure he doesn’t enjoy this any more than you do. Now you kind of get it, and you aren’t very fucking impressed.

When he’s out, Dave offers his hand to you, palm up, and an awkward smile. “Not the same when you’re not in control, huh?”

You don’t answer, feeling ill, just nod and take his hand, focus on his voice as he tells you a rambling tale of his trip with Bro to Florida one year. They got kicked out of a very popular theme park. You have never seen Florida (it was all underwater), but you think it sounds nice, even if they were asked politely yet firmly to leave.

Dave starts talking, and he does not stop, and this time, you don’t particularly care what he has to say. Something, anything, the longer and more convoluted the better. Dave has been to El Paso, no you don’t think any of it lasted, though you don’t have proof. They ate burritos at a local gas station and it was better than anything he’s ever had since. One time Bro drove them to Vegas. Dave was only four then, and he doesn’t even know if Bro was old enough to have business there in the first place. He doesn’t remember, but there are pictures of him sitting in the fountain at Caesar’s Palace, and then pictures of them fleeing the crime scene. (Dave leans around you to consider Bro for a second, admits he may have actually done that all for the sake of a good joke. It can be hard to tell with him.)

You don’t drink your water because you are absolutely unwilling to piss mid-flight, but you roll it between your hands to calm your nerves, and don’t set it in the little seat pocket until it’s long gone warm.

It is impossible for Dave to talk the whole way, and he’s tired, you’re tired, have spent the last three days being tired. You had to leave early this morning, and you can tell that Dave’s struggling to keep himself alert for you. Bro’s having zero fucking trouble now, head tucked against the window in a way that it looks like his neck is broken. You’re kinda jealous. Your teeth chatter with nerves, but you don’t feel as bad, by the time you enter Washington airspace. And god, how you’re mesmerized by the glittering ocean in the distance, feel an ache in your chest that isn’t anxiety at all.

Dave leans across you with zero respect for boundaries (not that you care), puts his elbow on Bro’s armrest. “It’s cool, huh? I’ve never uh. I never did get to visit John, all those years we were friends.” You see his eyes, over his shades, how they flick to you, then back down. “Was just really busy, I guess.”

You bonk your head against his lightly, don’t fuss over your hair (you’re three days in, anyway, you don’t even remember when you last brushed it and it’s already crushed on one side, so fuck it). “You’re here now, bro. That counts for something.”

“Yeah,” he says, and then he smiles, like he sees something you don’t. “Yeah, fuck yeah I am.”

  
  
There is no way in hell Bro is sober by the time you disembark, but the second you land he unfolds like fucking Wall-E, has somehow crawled over both of you, and is kneeling by DS before the first overhead compartment has even opened. Dude’s fast, you’ll give him that.

You look at Dave, and he just laughs, shrugs helplessly. “I have no fucking clue, dude. He’s  _your_ weird alternate universe self, not mine.”

And. Okay you can’t really be mad at him for that, because it’s fair, but it hurts a little. You squash that down, and Dave elbows you lightly.

“Hey, man. You did it.”

And hey, fuck, he’s right.

You never want to do it again.

You wait for Bro and DS in the baggage claim, stand with Roxy on one hand and Dave pressed against your other arm. It’s still early here, and most of the people look beat down, grumpy, and not particularly sociable. It’s all and fine with you, because your stress levels are already at maximum, but you still feel better when you finally see them exiting the elevator, Dave back in his chair and looking way more fucking comfortable.

“When are they supposed to meet us?” Mom asks around a yawn, and Rose is halfway through a reply when you hear an ungodly (or godly, if you prefer irony) loud shout.

John Egbert comes speeding across the baggage claim, arms flailing, moving at a rate that can only be boosted by his godtier abilities. You wonder if he’s noticed yet.

Right now, he uses them to quite literally hurl himself onto Davesprite’s wheelchair, arms and legs and all, and Bro’s hand on the back is the only thing that keeps them from flying into the wall.

DS is swearing up a storm, scared shitless, and John is laughing, and laughing, and smushing his hands into his hair, then his face, and Dave, beside you, has gone very still.

If you are being honest (and cruel, and oh, Dirk, how you can be so very cruel), you had been preparing for a version of this inevitability. You had suspected it would be quite the opposite, to be fair, but the hurt you see on your brother’s face, as he watches John and Dave, is something you had known would occur, and you feel a small sting of guilt. You could have said something sooner, or discussed it with either of them or -

But that would be meddling, and you’re trying not to do that anymore, you promised you’d stop (or try, anyhow) and god, it’s so fucking hard for you. You’re such a controlling, nosy bitch.

But Dave needs you to be a good Support Dirk, so you slide your fingers down his arm in warning, lace your hands together carefully, give a squeeze. It's the best you can do, and it feels like shit when he doesn't respond in kind.

"I can't believe you're actually like, kinda orange," is what John is saying, holding his arm up to Davesprite's, rumpling his hair. "It's like Beverly Hills House wives in here. Damn, dude, what happened?"

"If I fucking knew that, Egbert, I wouldn't be rocking the spray tan west Hollywood makeover, now would I?" DS drawls, but he looks a tad miffed. This doesn't surprise you, you have heard John can be a little insensitive. It definitely runs on one side of the family.

"Wow, way to snub the main attraction," Rose sighs, dragging her suitcase over. "I spend several hours on an aircraft, suffer through the Olympic feats it takes to keep my family from being kicked off said plane, and this is how I am treated? John, I am not only hurt, I am outright ashamed." She's the only one of you who has been keeping track of the damn things. An oversight on your behalf. Dave's fingers finally curl into yours and you're forced to watch sadly as Bro's beatup little suitcase rolls around the opposite side of the claim again.

But then John turns on all of you, and kid's got a mouth that could make an orthodontist cry, but you are so painfully aware in this moment how much he is related to Jake.  
He untangles himself from DS, and you get almost no warning to move as Roxy drags you out of the way before he throws himself at Dave and Rose, one arm for each, and drags them into the biggest hug either of them has probably had.

"I can't believe they actually convinced you to change out of your tight little hood," John says to Dave, squeezing his shoulders and frowning. "I was really looking forward to that."

"Bro wouldn't let him leave the apartment until he changed," DS says as he rolls over, wearing the biggest shit-eating grin. "He threatened to like, take away the Xbox and everything. It was ridiculous how much effort it took to get him to change."

"But you're still wearing the shades," John scoffs, and you are kind of impressed that Dave does not move a muscle when he reaches out and makes a play at adjusting them. You never even let Roxy touch your shades.

"I don't know why I have to keep defending my sweet ass knight-wear to a windsock-wearing asshole," Dave drawls, but you can see the smile curling on his left side, how his cheek dimples like Roxy's. You tell yourself you are not jealous, because you have no reason to be, and even if you were, it'd be completely unreasonable.

"I see introductions are well under way," comes an even, amused tone, and you know that this man, slightly too young to be Jane's father, tie the wrong color, and hat a little more beat up, can be none other than the famous Dad Egbert.

Whoa, they really do look similar.

"Wow, they really look the damn same, don't they?" Bro asks, and he's standing beside all of you now, looking bonelessly relaxed and leaning heavily on Roxy's suitcase. There is no way he is not still drunk.

"Mr. Egbert," Mom says, and her cheeks are tinged pink, her voice low. "A pleasure to see you again."

"And you as well, Ms. Lalonde," Egbert says, and honest to God kisses her hand.

Mom lets out a girlish giggle that makes you frown, but the only two people who look truly bothered are John and Rose, their faces set like they shared the same nasty lemon. Roxy just looks embarrassed, you think, and at least you're not alone for five fucking seconds.

"Gross, that's our mom," DS sighs softly, and Dave snorts, kicks one of his wheels.

Bro nudges your hand with the back of his knuckles, and when you crane your head to look at him, he wiggles his eyebrows. Yep, definitely not sober.

You hate this fucking family.

It's not that John does not interest you, because you are extremely interested in the person who claims to be your brother's BFF (twice over, you guess) but you do really want that fucking suitcase. You spent way too long at the CVS down the road from the apartment picking out the shittiest souvenirs for this trip, and you will not rest until you know your novelty snow globes are in tact.

Also, Bro is making you a little uncomfortable.

You watch them from the belt, how John smiles at the Daves, looking from DS to Dave and back again, and you guess all DS's worries were for naught. They seem to be getting on okay.

You lift your suitcase off the rack, and then after a moment, drag Bro's along as well (it's black, identical to all the others, aside from the luggage tag that reads 'Princess' in bright pink glitter font). At this point, you're sure he'll forget it, and you really don't want that to be a fight later.

" -efinitely more of a Jane than a Jake," Roxy is saying as you sidle up next to them, and she socks John in the arm.

"Oh, wow, that hurt sooooo much," John says with an eye roll. Pauses, rubs at his arm with a wince. "Actually, it did hurt a little. You're stronger than you look, Roxy, hehe."

"Could probably bench you like a rubber dumbbell, Egbert," you say, and turn to hand off Bro's case to him, only to find

That he's not

He's not fucking there.

"Huh," is the first thing out of your mouth, and you don't know why you say it, or why you're even surprised at this point, that after HE was the one who told you to chill out, that he didn't need babysitting, that he's the one who has wandered off and apparently gotten completely fucking lost.

DS literally just puts his head in his hands for a second, pinches the bridge of his nose like he's fighting a headache. "Did anyone fucking see where Bro went?"

Rose and Roxy shrug, Dave looks mildly constipated, and John looks completely unconcerned.

"He can't have gotten far," Rose says, but she sounds unsure. "He could barely walk straight, anyway. What did you do to him?"

"He did that to himself," Dave snaps, coughs a little, looks sheepish. "He's a nervous flier, he uh." He looks at you for help, eyebrows up, bunched in the middle. As if you weren't already a sucker for his bullshit.

"He drank a metric shit ton of whiskey," you say, and you're embarrassed on multiple accounts now, for all that Bro is crossways you and apparently incapable of handling liquor.

John doesn't really seem to get the big deal, because he just laughs again. "He's an adult, guys, come on. He probably just went to the bathroom or something."

You want to explain to John, maybe in the slowest of technical terms, that he's kind of hammered, dangerous, and an idiot troublemaker who promised not to cause any trouble, which yeah, you know, you should have thought of before trusting him. It was an oversight on your behalf, you apologize. But it is mildly imperative that you find this weird overgrown child.

This is, of course, when Mom notices he's not in her line of sight, and she says, "Oh now what the hell!" so loud you are almost certain half the airport heard her.

Your eyes roam the crowd, but you don't see him anywhere (he's hard to miss, standing like a tall, pale beacon in a hat), and you bite the bullet, and make a rash decision.

You pester him.

TT: Hey idiot.   
TT: And I don't mean that in the endearing way that Dave does, not either of them.   
TT: And certainly not in the way you probably feel deserves to be considered funny, because what you are doing right now is neither funny nor endearing.  
TT: hey.  
TT: Don't fucking "hey" me right now. Where the fuck are you?  
TT: i don't actually feel like i need to answer that.  
TT: in part because as you've so rudely pointed out, i am neither endearing nor particularly funny.  
TT: and also being inscrutable is just part of my charm.  
TT: No part of your personality is anywhere remotely within the realm of what I'd consider charming.  
TT: gee, mister strider, you sure know how to make a girl feel special.  
TT: I'll take you to the ball when you learn how to fucking behave. Now seriously,  
TT: Where the hell are you, dude?  
TT: gettin' a coffee at the starbucks.

You crane your neck around, but there is neither a coffee joint nor a Bro in sight. His chat flickers in the corner of your vision.

TT: haha made you look.  
TT: You know, you're a huge fucking dick.  
TT: i know.  
TT: Seriously? You "know"? That's all you have to say in this situation?  
TT: You fucking promised me in Houston. Promised me, bro, that you wouldn't pull this absolute horseshit.  
TT: i don't reckon i remember promising you anything, little man.

He's right, he didn't, you know he didn't, but you were hoping he didn't remember, that he would take you at face value. Guess he's just going to be a huge fucking asshole, no surprise there.

TT: nor do i find it at all adorable that you trusted me in the first place.  
TT: it's.  
TT: dare i say,  
TT: "charming".  
TT: Go fuck yourself.  
TT: oh c'mon, sweetheart.  
TT: you'll have to try a little harder than that if you really want to hurt my feelings.

Bile rises up in the back of your throat, your hands curling into fists. He's just trying to get a rise out of you. You don't know why you're playing along, why you even bothered. DS may think he has soft spot for you, but you know that's not true, could never be true. Bro feels the same way about you as any Dirk has ever felt about any other Dirk, and it was foolish of you to pretend otherwise.

Dave's hand is warm on your shoulder, and you roll him off you without thinking, have to stop yourself, rewind, replay. Fuck. Fuck, shit, no, you didn't mean to do that.

"Hey, sorry," he mumbles, and you scramble to grab him before he slinks away.

They're all staring at you now, and you want to crawl into a hole and die there. "No, shit, sorry, Dave, I'm - I'm sorry. I'm pestering him."

"Is he talkin'?" Mom's hands are on her hips, and her face is stormy.

"Yes," you say curtly as another message rolls across your lens. "But he's being unsurprisingly recalcitrant about his location. I'm actually starting to wonder why I fucking bothered."

"Language," Mom and Egbert say at once, and John rolls his eyes while Roxy snickers.

"Dirkleton, they're your spares, right? Why don't you just turn on the GPS?"

You blink. Oh. Yeah. Right. She's right. "Rox, you're a genius," you say, and it takes a second of you waiting for Hal (stop, bite down on guilt) before you remember to run the program yourself.

It doesn't ping very far, since the only place you've ever needed to find lost glasses was your apartment, but if you get within 10-15 feet, it should light him up like a Christmas tree, and you can follow the signal from there.

The problem is, you're going to have to take a walk. Preferably alone, to cut down on distraction, and with him as your only speaking companion. Ugh.

"You don't have to do it by yourself," Dave says, before you can open your mouth. He's fucking good, caught you right in the middle of your thought process and brought the train to a screeching halt.

"But I kind of do," you tell him, shrug. Try to think of a way to tell Dave he's a distraction, without saying it at all. It won't be that bad, you tell yourself. You can do it. You're a big fucking kid now, Jesus, you're not a dainty little princess. You can walk across an airport without getting lost. Probably.

Dave gives you this look which you're pretty sure means he knows you're full of shit, but he nods. "A'ight, but if you get lost, and Dave 'n I have to come get you, I'm never letting you live it down."

"Dave," you sigh, pushing your shades up on your nose, setting your suitcase next to Bro's and Roxy's, "there is very little dignity I have left in this world, at this point. Save me at least a fraction, alright?"

He doesn't seem to know what to say to that, so you pinch your nose, mutter "Christ," under your breath, and start off across the baggage claim, heading back the way you came in hopes of finding. Something. A clue, you guess. You open his log again, anyway, and regret it.

TT: aww did big baby get his panties in a knot.  
TT: I just didn't see any point in me responding when all you really have to say is a bunch of useless insults wrapped up in poor phrasing and a lack of proper enunciation.  
TT Would you prefer I mimic the perfect syntax of my youth?  
TT: Break away from the slapstick humor of my "aww hell naw" Texan routine, put on a show of self-congratulatory wit worthy of my acumen?  
TT: Leaving us both wondering, which came first? The alpha, or the beta?  
TT: Are you superior to me simply because you are the antithesis of what I claim to be?  
TT: Or perhaps because you talk in large, looping circles around me and all your little cronies?  
TT: Or am I superior in that I am fully aware of our ironic pageantry, and the fact that friends and family alike find it tiring, as well as distastefully condescending?  
TT: Truthfully, is there any satisfaction in driving people away with your pedantic, bitterly lonely rants about the meaning of the universe, and your place in it?  
TT: Do you ever tire of our egregious sense of self-importance, or the need for a handle so vague and morbid your poor audience needs a dictionary to dissect it?  
TT: Do you think everyone will forget you if you aren't guiding them? Pulling at their strings like they're worthless to you as anything but puppets?  
TT: Do you fear that your life has no meaning, if you are not the smartest among your peers, Dirk?  
TT: Fuck you.  
TT: haha.  
TT: there's not much appeal left in any of that for me.  
TT: the smartypants snob thing, i mean.  
TT: not anymore.  
TT: i ain't got nothing to prove to anybody, least of all you.  
TT: How are you this much of an asshole while you're drunk?  
TT: i would venture to say i am always this much of an asshole, and you have just never taken the time to get to know me.

He's right, sort of, and you don't know why you bother feeling hurt by any of this. He doesn't care about you. You know that. To fool yourself into thinking otherwise was childish, stupid.

TT: You know what I think?  
TT: i'm sure you'll tell me exactly what you think, kid.  
TT: just like you always do.  
TT: I think, 

You start, and you're not even looking where you're going now, hands curled into fists at your sides, breath uneven. You're frustrated, you're furious. If he was in front of you, you're sure you'd punch him.

TT: I think you're afraid of people getting to know the real you.  
TT: I think you resent me because I'm a second chance you will never get to have, and I represent all the things you hate most about yourself.  
TT: And that the idea of me, or you, or any version of any Dirk being vulnerable with anyone?  
TT: Scares the absolute shit out of you.  
TT: I think you push me and Dave and everyone else away because you're terrified.  
TT: And I think that deep down? You're just as lonely as I am.

You shouldn't care about him, and you shouldn't care what he thinks, or doesn't, or the fact that he gets right into your head, right into the core of your own bitterness, right into the part of yourself that's corrosive, eats at you from the inside out.

TT: maybe you're right.

His signal gets brighter as you head towards the escalators.

TT: But you don't have to be.

You shouldn't care.

TT: You have me.  
TT: And Dave.  
TT: yknow it's almost kinda cute how much you kids think your positive little dandelion-through-the-cracks speeches will fix everything.  
TT: They love you, bro. I know you know that.   
TT: unfortunately for me, i do  
TT: i don't know why i fucking agreed to this oh fuck hold on oh shit  
TT: that's really fucking gross

Thought-to-text isn't easy for anyone, and you're actually kind of impressed he picked it up this quickly. You're also pretty sure he just threw up on you.

You follow the now blinking red dot straight into a bathroom, tucked behind a shop selling outdated magazines and ugly neck pillows. You have been in public bathrooms, but the appeal is still next to zilch for you, and you wrinkle your nose, tread carefully around the sinks, avoid looking at your own reflection, lest you get sucked into trying to fix your hair.

There's only two closed spaces here, past the line of urinals, and you can see one of his feet sticking out from under the door of the handicap stall, besides.

You fight with your words, stuck between a  _"Dirk"_ and a _"Bro"_ , when he speaks for you. "M'here."

"I can't open the door from the outside," you say simply.

He groans softly. "Can't you climb under the door like a normal kid?"

"You, of all people, should know that I, of all people, am not a normal kid," you say, and just to prove a point, you grab the top of the stall and pull your weight until you can rest well enough to see him sprawled on the floor, arms folded over the toilet seat.

He peeks up at you and wiggles his hands in jazzy gesture, says "You fooound me," in complete monotone. All the fight, the vitriol, all the mean things you had to say, all of it leaks away when you see him there, clutching his porcelain throne like he's trying to live and die there.

"You're in big fucking trouble, mister," you say, swing yourself over the door to drop down next to him. "What the fuck were you thinking?"

"Wasn't," he mutters, presses his forehead to the back of one hand. His hat is missing again, and glancing away, you see it hanging from the door hook. Wow. You wonder what that says about you.

"So what, you decided on a whim to take a walk? Ended up in a disgusting bathroom stall? And for what? Mom's gonna fucking kill you, you know."

"Maintenance crew just came through when we exited the gate," he mumbles into his arm, rolls his head to look at you. There's spittle crusted to the corner of his mouth, and you do not gag. "Cleanest place I could find, barring a trash can. Meds ain't sitting so well with my rash decisions, as it turns out."

And shit, why didn't you think about that before? You and Dave should have - well you are just kids. Still, you should have checked his prescriptions before you left or. Or something.

You don't know what to say, because he was just being a huge fucking dick to you, and because now you feel needlessly guilty for something that wasn't technically your fault. "You good now?" is what you settle on.

He laughs softly, rusty chainsaw on a rusted swing, and slowly pushes himself upright. "Don't really have much left to lose, I s'pose." He pauses, and when he looks at you, the twinkle in his eye makes it clear he is still intoxicated. "That was another pun, in case you were wondering."

"I wasn't," you grunt, reaching out a hand and dragging him to his feet. "C'mon. The sooner we get your sorry ass back, the sooner I get out of this hell hole."

"Amen to fucking that," he sighs, dragging a hand back through his hair before replacing his hat, delicate as anything.

You wait patiently while he washes his hands and face, and pester Dave to let him know you found him in one piece.

TT: Hey. Found him in a bathroom by the gate.  
TT: He's alive, if a little bit hard to fucking deal with right now.  
TG: oh thank god  
TT: You can just call me Dirk, if you like.  
TG: haha yeah but also fuck off  
TG: tell him daves gonna kick his ass to hell and back btw  
TG: he aint fucking happy

"Dave says he's going to kick your ass," you tell him.

He almost-smiles. "Yeah, I'll just bet."

You're still pretty fuckin' mad at him, honestly, but you don't know how to bring it up without yelling at him in a public space, and it's not something you're brave enough to do.  
He lopes alongside you at half-pace, neither particularly slow nor in a hurry to go anywhere. "Hey," he says, bumps a hand against your elbow lightly. "I uh. What I said back there."

"Let me guess," you bite out, terse. "You 'didnt mean any of it', and you're hoping I won't take it to heart."

"No, I meant it," Bro says, and there is a sardonic amusement to his tone. "But I didn't have to say it like that. It ain't fun, getting ripped to shreds like that. I didn't have to snap at you because I felt like shit. M'sorry about that, if anything."

You stop mid-step, stare at him.

He stares back, eyebrow cocked above his frames.

"Are you fucking kidding me," you say, and it comes screeching from between your teeth. "You're apologizing for hurting my  _feelings_ after viciously mocking me for shit you and I both do, or have done? Or keep doing?  _That's_ what you're taking away from all this? Do you understand how messed up that is?"

"Vaguely," he says, winces. "Or, I'm starting to, anyway."

"You're completely unbelievable," you say, and mean it. He's going to give you a headache.

"Yeah," he sighs, and when you start up again, he follows. "I know."

  
DS does in fact kick the shit out of him, and Bro lets him, stands there like a fool while his shins are straight up assassinated. You're too tired to laugh, but Dave takes a few pictures, and John seems to enjoy it.

Mom drags him away from all of you as you start the parade out of the baggage claim and towards the parking garage, and you're sure he's gonna get an earful.  
Dave bumps your shoulder carefully, and you don't flinch, hunch in a little. "Hey. You okay, man?"  
"Yes," you say on reflex. Sigh. Correct, "No."  
Dave doesn't ask, because he's not good at asking you for things, still, after all these months, but he slides his hand down, molds his palm against yours. And he doesn't have to, and maybe it's a little embarrassing, but it makes you feel better, and you don't try to pull away.

John and the Daves bicker pretty much all the way over the skybridge, all the way down the escalators and all the way across the garage until your little parade finally comes to a halt before two identical white cars.

You're a little surprised when John trots around one of them, crawls into the driver's side and pops the trunk. "Start loading up, kids. We're about to hit the fucking road."  
"Language," Dad warns, but he's opening the door of the other car for Mom.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going on here.

"No fucking way you already have your license," Dave says, though he sounds hesitant, maybe a little jealous.

John grins wildly, but Davesprite wheels up to the passenger side, unphased. "I call shotgun."

Dave balks. "You are not seriously going to trust John of all people to drive, are you?"

DS's smile is crooked, amused. "He's got more practice than you."

"We used to fly the car across Skaia," John says, adjusting his mirrors and reaching across DS to move the seat to accommodate what you can only assume is going to be you, sitting in the back. "It was a little more messed up back then, though. But with some help from Jade and stuff, we got it working!"

"Dunno if I'm even gonna fit, Egbert," you say, peering into the back. There are three seats. There are four of you left.

"Aww, Dirk, come onnnnn, live a little," Roxy says, and her teeth glitter in the dim light of the garage.

"John," his father says in warning, shutting the door gently behind Bro, who has crawled into the back seat and immediately passed out.

"Aw, c'mon, Dad, please, it's only 45 minutes," John wheedles, puts on these huge blue blinkers so bright you almost shield your fucking eyes. "We'll double buckle, I swear!" He looks at you, holds a finger to his lips as if his dad can't fucking see it.

"No we fucking will not," Dave says, but Rose is already manhandling him into the middle.

"No need to be afraid, brother dear. Aren't you supposed to be a fearless knight?"

"I'd rather be an  _alive_ knight," he snorts, but after you crawl in next to him, he doesn't protest when there's nowhere for your arm to go but around his shoulders, and then Roxy's as she squishes in with Rose. Pfft. Bet he just fucking loves that, little creep.

"Fucking incredible," DS whispers from the front, all shit-eating grin, watching you in the backseat. "Fuck, hold on, let me get my phone -"

"Daaave, don't move my mirrors," John gripes, shifting it back. This time when you catch eyes with him in the mirror, he winks at you.

You flush red and look away.

This entire trip is a giant fucking mistake, and you are helplessly unequipped to deal with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm crying this chapter was never supposed to get this long, or really happen at all. actual washington antics next chapter, i swear. we're in my territory now, boys.


	19. all the way down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davesprite gives some shitty apologies, and gets some in return. He doesn't know how to do it any better. It's hard, being a kid and growing up. It's hard and nobody understands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome back and merry goddamn christmas eve, everyone! oh boy!  
> no weird warnings this chapter, other than Dave having an itty bitty upset in the car on the way over  
> so cw for anxiety riddled teens who are too honest about their feelings, and some arguing but it's fine!  
> (PS it is 5 am and my brain is melting so if you see any errors lemme know, otherwise I will re-edit later!)

When John defense tackled you (nice, sports reference) in the airport, you thought, “he cannot have possibly meant that to be for me.”

But he talks your ear off all the way home, tells you how nice it is for Nanna to be back, how happy it makes his dad, how Jane can bake, without mixes, and how even though he doesn’t love cake, he loves that they both want to teach him how to actually cook. It’s like nothing ever happened, like before the ship crashed through the window, like before you all started to fight, and you got so depressed you stopped actually showing up for dinner and started leaving cryptic watermarks where you knew only John would find them (and he thought they were funny, for awhile, he did, but he tired of those too, just like he did you).

You don’t know what this visit will bring, and you feel about as comfortable as Dirk looks, sitting behind you, knees practically folded to his chest. You wonder how he’ll fucking live when he hits that last growth spurt, leaves you and Dave in the dust and no longer fits in standard passenger vehicles.

You don’t know how to face Jade.

You don’t know what you’re supposed to say.

And you know, okay, you do, that she doesn’t remember, not really, in the way that Dirk remembers, but not really, and how he won’t tell Dave (and it’s not his fault, you know, that you woke him from a nightmare too soon, that he almost gave you an impromptu haircut, that he’s too ashamed to tell Dave how much he feels like a failure).

You know that what you have to say will sound insane, that you’ll have to rely on John’s testimony to the fact, that he wasn’t even around for most of that stuff, the personal stuff. And fuck you, you’re still so fucking not off the hook for all the horseshit you pulled on his fifteenth birthday, and how you avoided both of them, and how you isolated yourself. You feel like John never really forgave you, for that. And you don’t know if he should, because you never fucking apologized.

You were a really shitty friend, and you think that once the high of “everyone’s alive and isn’t this fun!” wear off, you are going to be up shit creek without a paddle, and no way fucking back down.

God, you should have asked Rose.

You still haven’t really talked to her about Bro yet, though. You don’t know how to tell her, or Dave, or even Dirk about that night, and it definitely feels a little bit like lying. You are at least 90% sure you are the only person your bro has hugged in the past thirteen years, and it’s not like it was great, and you were kind of too miserable to enjoy, anyway. (It was still kinda cool, in its own way, the soft “umph” of the air leaving his lungs, how he didn’t let go of you until you were ready, even though he was obviously uncomfortable.)

Despite his best attempts, Dave falls asleep in the backseat within the first fifteen minutes. No surprise, there. Long car rides may as well be a fucking pacifier and lullaby combo for you (and him, you guess), and you’ve always been helpless to stay awake during road trips. The lack of sleep he got sharing a room with Dirk this week probably didn’t help, either, though, haha. But Dirk doesn’t shrug him off, adjusts Dave’s shades so that they don’t dig into his shoulder so much. It’s kind of sweet, in an overly cliche and saccharine way. You’ve never let anyone but John touch your shades before, except Jade, and even that was only once.

Dave trusts him, and you’re starting to. You can talk to him, at least. Dirk, you mean. There’s no need for fear, no judgment. You’re kinda shitty, he’s been kinda shitty. You get each other. He’s fair, if a little biased with his kindness towards you. If you were being a dick, there’s a good chance he’d mention it, you think. You respect that.

Rose and Roxy follow shortly after Dave, make it about 30 minutes in to John’s shitty jokes before they nod off. John keeps talking, but drops his voice considerably. If Dirk cares to listen at all, he doesn’t mention it, elbow propped up on the window ledge and chin in his palm. You know the dude gets majorly car sick, you should have let him ride up front.

Ugh. 

Now you feel like a dick again.

“Aww,” John murmurs, looking in his rearview, and you feel your guts churn at the smile on his face, so gentle, a little nostalgic. He hasn’t looked at you like that since before your fourteenth birthday, back when you were still trying to clean up the apartment in your spare time and didn’t want to talk to anyone (they found you, anyway, he and Nanna, and they had made you a cake, even though you know John hated baking).

He looks at you now, and his smile fades, and you feel the small black hole inside you tear just a little bit more. He opens his mouth, closes it again. Clears his throat. “Hey. It really is cool that you’re back, Dave. Uh, Dave Sprite. And not dead, and stuff. We wouldn’t be here right now without you, you know. Or I wouldn’t be, at least.”

“John,” you start weakly. You don’t really want to play along. You don’t want to get into this right now, especially not with this weird angle he’s playing, all nice and gentle, like nothing ever fucking -- but maybe you’re being difficult again, maybe this is all in your fucking head and how are you supposed to tell if no one will just. Just be HONEST with you?

John does not take the fucking hint. “And even when you were a weird cat-bird-person, Jade said you helped -”

“Stop!” you snap, quiet as you can. You don’t mean to. You don’t mean to at all, your hands curling on your knees, palms sweating, chest tightening until you feel like you can’t breathe. You’re drowning, choking on air, and you can’t fucking breathe. You don’t mean to snap, but you cannot do this right now, you cannot deal with this, you cannot handle whatever he’s going to say to you, not right now. Not right now, you aren’t prepared, you aren’t ready.

Dirk raises his head in your peripherals, curious, but the others don’t stir. You don’t tell him to back off because you don’t have the patience for both of them at the moment, and because you don’t know what he’d even say, and you just can’t. You can’t.

“I really fucking - I can’t - I can’t fucking -”

you think about _claws, you think about hair curling around your cheeks, you think about being ground into dust_

“I just want everyone to stop bringing that up! I hate thinking about myself like that, about how I -”

_about how you weren’t Dave, you weren’t depressed Dave, you weren’t much of any Dave, not anymore, how youbutnotyou were_

_but it wasn’t you and you_

You squeeze your eyes shut, press your hands to your temples. “John, please. Can we at least wait until we get back to your house before we lay all our shit bare like this?”

John hesitates, and you’re almost impressed to see how much he’s grown, when you weren’t looking, how he keeps his hands on the wheel, opposite Bro’s, at eight and four. “Um. Okayyy... I, I am sorry, Dave. For. You know.”

“No, Egbert,” you laugh, and it’s pathetic, a little mean. You glance back at Dave and Rose, hope to god they’re actually asleep. “I don’t know. But I am so fucking excited to find out exactly what I should ‘know’.”

“Dude, are you seriously going to just start being a dick again right out of the gate?” John whispers back, and he’s frowning at you now, and there’s a face you recognize, the way the left side of his face scrunches up first. You hear the wheel creak between his fingers. “I’m trying to apologize to you, even though -”

Dirk’s long arm snakes its way from the back viper fast, and he puts a steady hand on John’s shoulder. “Save it for later, kid.” And he sounds so much like Bro you almost jump.

Dave groans at having lost his pillow, but he doesn’t wake, just wraps his arms around Dirk’s torso in a way that cannot possibly be comfortable. Dirk leans back anyway, puts his arm back on the window sill, looks away with practiced disinterest.

John doesn’t say anything at all, after that, not for a long time, and it’s not until about ten minutes later, when his gears have finished turning past angry that he switches subjects and barrels forward, like nothing happened at all.

  
John’s house looks the same way you remember it, except not at fucking all. Rose’s additions were kind of a bizarre copy-paste, a never-ending Egbert Jenga tower. They’re all gone, now, and the additions on two sides as you drive around the corner are even, smooth, and blend so seamlessly that it’s a kind of uncanny valley moment when you realize what you’re looking at.

“Whoa,” you say.

“Damn, dude,” Dirk says, gives a low whistle. “Your house is fucking huge now.”

“Yeah,” John laughs, pulls into the spot just next to the mailbox. “We finished the extension this week! Jane’s still moving into her room, you guys can probably help.” He glances at you, grimaces awkwardly. Way to go, Egbert. “Uh. I’m sure Nanna won’t mind someone to hang out with, downstairs.”

“Gee, thanks,” you grind out, between your teeth. Because you wanted to be reminded how absolutely useless you are twice in an hour. Cool. Thanks, John.

“I wasn’t trying to -” John throws his hands up, then covers his face, groans. “Ugh! I told myself I wasn’t gonna do this right now, so we’re not! Let’s just go inside before Jade comes out and climbs all over the car again.”

You don’t know what he means by “again”, but you’re not willing to wait long enough to find out, so you open the door, and everyone else wakes up and sleepily piles out, and you

You fucking wait.

And wait.

And wait.....

“John,” you say, and try not to sound like an ass. A pathetic ass, who snapped at him and now needs help. “Or fuckin’, uh. Somebody?” You are definitely pathetic right now. You hate asking for help, more than anything in the world, and you feel useless, sitting here, staring at the ground, with legs that can kick but can’t fucking hold you up. “Guys? I can’t -”

But then there’s Bro, standing next to the door, unfolding your chair, locking it into place.

You stare at him, mouth open to form, “What the fuck.”

“My bad,” he says, monotone, but eyebrows pinched up in the middle. If you didn’t know better, you’d say he looks guilty. “They put it in the backseat with me. I shoulda been on top of that. C’mon, kiddo.”

You know he was just being a huge ass in the airport, that he made you and Mom and everyone kinda flip, but you think he’s trying to make up for that now. If only in the shittiest way possible. He’s really fucking bad at this. But he waits for you to drag yourself into your chair, doesn’t make fun of the way you falter slightly.

You pause when you get situated, drum your hands on the arms for a second. “What if I’m not ready?” you mumble, look up at him, shades to shades. You try to find his eyes under the glass, will him to understand how fucking scared you are, and that if he teases you right now you’ll fucking kick him in the balls.

He sighs, and you think he’s probably still drunk, leaning heavy on the car door, or halfway to hungover, at least (and Dirk said he’d been puking, that his meds reacted badly, and shit you should’ve been on top of that, should’ve paid more attention). He watches Dave and Dirk carefully dragging everyone’s suitcases out of the trunk, looks back at you. “Whaddya got to lose?”

“My fucking dignity?” you say, and he snorts. You shove his leg. “She might not remember enough for me to... to apologize, I guess. And I can’t really call her out on shit if she doesn’t know what I’m talking about.” The more you talk, the more you curl into yourself, stare at your shoes. “I don’t know.”

“Christ, look at us,” he not-laughs, rubs at the center of his chest absently. You think about the way his sword pierced his sternum, right between the bone, and try not to wince. “Guess we’re all just owing up to shit these days, huh?”

“Some of us are having more trouble than others,” you say, and don’t know if you mean him, or you, or maybe even Dirk, who is definitely looking at John and Jane’s house like it’s a stockade, and not really in the usual way.

Bro stares at you, presses his lips together. You hate when he does that, because that’s what Dirk does when he’s making a decision and he hasn’t determined if the outcome is worth the trouble yet. It’s a fraction of a second, and then he grabs the back of your chair, starts pushing you across the lawn and towards the front door.

You scramble for purchase, give up trying to stop him when you scrape your palms against the wheels. “Dude! Bro! Not fucking cool!”

“We all have to face our fears eventually, kid,” he says, and no one helps you, as he hoists your entire chair up onto the stoop, stands beside you like he’s waiting for YOU to get the courage to open the door. “You dragged my ass all the way from Houston. You better make it worth it.”

“You are a grade-A asshole,” you hiss to him, struggle with deciding if trying to kick him right now will be worth it.

“Right back at you, Dave,” he says, and he smiles when you squawk, leans around you and presses the doorbell after all.

You are halfway through a “fuck you” when the door swings open with such great force you almost roll backwards.

“Davesprite!” Jade shouts, and there she is, and she’s the same way you remember her, warm brown skin and bright green eyes and wild hair that floats around her like a cloud and then she’s throwing her arms around your shoulders and you feel like you might suffocate, or cry. “There you are! Hi! Hello! So good to see you alive!”

“Uh,” you say, and your voice is definitely a little froggy. You raise a shaky hand, fight with returning the hug,and settle for a gentle pat on the back. “Hey.”

“I wasn’t sure if you would make it with John driving,” she says as she pulls away, and you don’t ache to pull her back, let her hand slip away from yours. She rolls her eyes, gives a toothy grin. “He is suuuuch a boring driver. He won’t even let me stick my head out the window!”

Haha. Dog jokes bubble up just behind your tongue and you have to bite back on them. Wow, you almost forgot about that, and she sure does have those fluffy white ears, and they sure do twitch on their own, huh. Wow.

Bro seems to notice at the same time, and he steps around her with some level of unease, quarter speed, like when he’s trying not to scare you. You have a feeling maybe he’s not such a big fan of dogs, now.

(You cannot blame him.)

“I don’t let you stick your head out because it’s dangerous!” John says, and he sidles up beside you, dragging Rose’s suitcase along behind him. Heh. Perfect fucking gentleman, this one. At least to some people.

“Please, Egbert,” Dave drawls behind him, “everyone sticks their head out the window from time to time, she ain’t special.”

“Yeah, but not everyone does it every single time they’re in a car! And they definitely don’t stick their tongue out of their mouths when they do it!”

“John!!” Jade practically leaps over you to smack at her brother while he laughs. “You don’t have to tell them that! It was one! Time!”

“I find I’m more disappointed that we do not have photo evidence of this event occurring,” Rose says, and you crane your neck back to see her. The smile on her painted lips is shining affection and sleep-saturated relief.

Here you all are, together for the first time as friends since the end of the Game, and you feel bitterly, stupidly alone.

“Not that I’m not having fun in this surprisingly hot-as-balls bullshit weather, but can we please fucking go inside?” Dirk speaks up, and you’re kinda glad he’s around, after all. Second time he’s save your ass today. Christ, which one of you is supposed to be the knight again??

“You’re not going to be too happy about it, I’m afraid,” John’s dad says, but he’s smiling, carrying Mom’s luggage. “We have the AC units installed in the bedroom windows, but the house itself doesn’t have central air. It’s rare for Washington to stay hot long enough to justify the cost.”

“That is the worst news you coulda ever given,” Roxy says around a big sigh. “After the gosh-dang trauma we’ve been enduring in Texas since May, Mr. Egbert.”

“When will the heatwave end,” Rose laments, and then she shoves past you into the house. Well. You fucking never. She smiles at you, though, and you know she’s giving you a pity in.

“Listen, Lalonde, you coulda left any old damn time, and we would’ve been fine.” It’s a complete fucking lie, of course, but you don’t thank her as she holds the door open for you, roll in to find Bro standing in the middle of the living room,

Well.

Actually, it’s kind of hard to process what you’re seeing.

That’s definitely Nanna, and you’d know her anywhere, even with her hair steely blue and her arms painted an almost inhuman shade, but she’s got Bro solidly by the hand, has both of them trapping one of his, forcing your brother to bow at an awkward angle.

But he doesn’t look that upset by it, face placid as this little old lady natters away at him with a grin on her face.

“Oh, it has been an age, hasn't it, Strider?” she says, and tilts her head a little to the side, a clear indication that he’s being allowed to speak.

“Yes, ma’am.” His voice is a low rumble, something approaching uncomfortably gentle. “Nearin’ on seventeen years.” He pauses, clears his throat, corrects, “Twenty, now, I reckon.”

Nanna is the one who sees you first, and her wrinkled face pinches further, delight that sparkles in her eyes, and you finally see Jane there, in the roundness of her cheeks, her too-big front teeth and heavy eyelids. “We’ll talk later, dear,” she says to Bro, pats him on the arm before letting him go to turn her holy shit fancy fucking electric chair towards you. “Dave, sweetie!”

You choke on a reply, and you’re not going to fucking cry, you’re not going to admit how absolutely ecstatic you are that she’s here, the person who used to leave food outside your door, who’d float through the walls to find you if it’d been a few days since you bothered to show your face. It was a kindness you’ve never known, and yeah she was silly, and part fucked up clown-sprite, but she was so fucking NICE to you, and no one had ever been that nice to you and all you can get out is, “Yeah.”

She can’t hug you like this, but she cups your face, squishes your cheeks in a kind mimic of John at the airport, laughs a soft _“hoo hoo hoo!”_

“Hi, Nanna,” you mumble, feel your cheeks go hot under her cool touch. You don’t really want Bro to see any of this shit, it’s really fucking embarrassing, and she’s not even your grandma.

Bro is just standing there, though, looking at her in a way you can only describe as “soft”, and you feel kind of weird, flick your eyes back and forth between them. He finally notices you and Rose staring. Rose grins at him, waves, and he scowls, speeds off towards the kitchen, where the door slams and you hear thunderous laughter that you are so fucking unwilling to investigate because you can _not_ handle more horseshit mind-blowing nonsense, not today.

You are grilling the shit out of him later, though.

“How are you, dear?” Nanna asks, lets you go as you wheel backwards a little, shy and uncomfortable.

“Better,” you tell her softly, and mean it. “I uh. Wish I could walk? But I don’t feel as...” You trail off, shrug, don’t really want to talk about it, especially not with Rose staring at you like you’re fucking chum.

Nanna is no less sharp than Jane, she sees your sister standing there all Too-Polite, and she winks at you. “It’s good to see you, Dave. If you have any more questions, maybe you can help me bake dessert later, alright?”

“Yeah,” you say, and then she’s rolling off to follow Bro into the kitchen, and you fucking WISH you had that much control, or a motor to go with it.

“Haha, you so got Nanna’d, dude,” John literally laughs at you, sticks a hand into your hair and ruffles it like feathers. You let out a squawk, burn red in shame when he laughs again, and he sets Rose’s luggage off to the side, heads towards the stairs. “I’ll go get Jane and Jake! He said he was gonna move her bed but.” He rolls his eyes. “Jane can totally do it without anyone’s help, and honestly I’m pretty sure he’d be better off just moving the chest.”

“I’ll,” Dirk says, hesitates just inside the door. His hands flex, and you know damn well why he cannot fucking move. “Uh.”

"We’ll go with!” Roxy says, pushing him from behind so that he stumbles, almost crashes into you. Fuck. "Won't we, Dirk?" Fuck, this is it, isn't it?

"Uh-huh," he says, but it feels far away, and you think you really wish that you could change, and that you weren't wearing sweatpants, and that your shirt was red or black or any other color but white. Fuck.

“Dude, Roxy, don’t fucking kill him,” Dave laughs, and you don’t stop him when he gently guides your chair over to the couch. You don’t really remember even freezing, don’t really care one way or the other. Fuck, dude.

You’re so. You’re so fucking confused. Overwhelmed. You don’t know how to - fuck, Dirk left, now, and it’s just you and Dave and Rose and. And Jade, who comes to stand in the middle of the living room, looks at you, bites her lip.

Fuck.

Fuck fuck _fuck_.

"Listen, Davesprite," Jade hedges carefully, fingers twisting together. "Um. I think we should talk? About stuff. Like, big stuff. Maybe alone?"

And you hate that you're stuck in your chair, that you can't stand and face her, and maybe that'd be a bad idea, too, using your height against her, towering over her like some kind of asshole. But "alone" sounds like the worst fucking idea, it sounds like you literally prostrating yourself on the ground, begging her to just _forget_.

Rose, god fucking help you, does not need to butt in. Which is, of course, precisely what she does. "Jade... Perhaps given the nature of, ah, our memories, and the somewhat fragile state of, of your relationship, maybe it'd be better if we -"

"Does this really have to be a huge fucking deal?" you non-laugh, and you don't know why you think it's a good idea, and you're definitely going to regret it, but you climb carefully onto the couch - you even almost-stand, just for a second, and you hope they all saw holy shit. You lean back into the cushions and fuck, okay, maybe it wasn't a terrible plan, because you missed this fucking couch, and proper furniture, and comfort that wasn't just sleep-based, but you sure as fuck could use a nap, right here, right now.

And then you realize that Dave is watching both of you, that he looks like a civilian stuck in a face-off. Rose is still by the door, and anger and resentment start to bubble in your chest.

"Can everyone just sit the fuck down and stop making me feel like a little kid?" you manage, and you're proud that you only sound a little mad. "Like, fuck, I'll, I'll talk. I'll stop making it weird, anything, whatever but." Your fingers find your knees again, and you feel like an extra in a soap opera. "But I can't stand up, and it feels like y'all are pretty metafuckingphorically lookin' down on me right now."

And of course this is when Mom and Dad walk in, and they freeze, and you can see the concern and apprehension on Mom's face. You are going to fucking die right here, right now.

You don't know how to handle this, but Dave apparently does, because he comes to sit beside you, leg pressed too close to yours, and you really wish he'd stop doing this, you think he's getting this habit from Dirk, which is so fucking ironic because you have never met a human so allergic to absent touches as Dirk "here let me sit really close to you but refuse to ask for a hug" Strider. He really is Bro, all the way deep down. Or maybe it's the other way around.

He makes a really unnecessary show of adjusting his shades, and you realize what he's doing before he finishes doing it, and before the kitchen door creaks open again.

You are so unused to the idea of Bro being hesitant, still, after all this time. But he leans his head out in a way that's almost human, like a kid checking to see if their parents have stopped fighting. Joke's on him; you haven't even started. He looks at your friends, looks at you and Dave, and you consider the consequences of opening his chat. Wonder if it'd be fucking rude.

Fuck him, it's your handle too.

TG: bro  
TG: s o fucking s 

That actually explains. Well. A lot, really. You're almost impressed. Poignant, cuts to the heart of the matter. Relying on Bro to parse it was a gamble.  
But Bro doesn't need more than a minute to determine the actual problem here, and then he's across the room, has both Mom and Dad by the place where their shoulders become their necks, and there is something disconcertingly threatening about the gesture.

Mom starts to protest, dig her heels in, but Bro murmurs words too soft to hear, and then all three adults are ducking into the kitchen again and it is just the fucking four of you and the large tumbleweed you're imagining waiting to roll across the floor.

"Y'all can sit, now," Dave says, and he sounds about as annoyed as you feel. He leans back, settles in, crosses his arms, and if you weren't so irritated that he's crowding you right now, you'd feel kinda glad he seems to be on your side in this.

Jade frowns. "Dave you don't have to..."

Dave snorts, and it feels kind of aggressive, weird, like he's mad, too, and what could he possibly have beef with Jade for? "Yeah I kinda do. We're practically the same fucking person, right, Jade?"

Okay, wow, rude.

"That's not true! You never -" Jade bites her lip. "Oh, I don't know. Davesprite is the one who -"

"Hey you're the one who said  _I_ broke _your_ heart," Dave drawls, and there is no way on Earth that he isn't just being a little bit mean.

"Dave, maybe we shouldn't -" Rose starts.

"That's because I was upset, and you called Davesprite a neurotic douche!" Jade shouts, and she stomps her foot.

And

Okay,  
Wait a minute.

What?

You gape at her, and Dave sits up, completely straight and perfectly still. "You remember that???"

You definitely don't, and you are not fucking happy that they were talking about you at any point at all, and it definitely feels really fucking shitty.

Jade throws her hands up. "Yes! No! Not really?" She drags them down her face, covers her big round glasses. "I don't know! Sometimes it's all there, like when I used to dream on Prospit, but then I wake up and I can't remember! And when I  _do_ remember, it's just brief flashes, but only when someone mentions it, and never by myself." She peeks at both of you between her fingers. "Do you know how hard it is, being told all the things you did and said, and having the vague feeling that someone is telling the truth, but no way to prove it?"

"No," both of you say, and neither of you mention the burden of a Time player, because it isn't really the right conversation, or, appropriately, the right time for it.

"Exactly! Because you both always think you know everything, and that whatever it is, it's always right! Even Rose remembers more than me!"

You look at her, because this is fucking news to you, and she's cringing hard, and okay, you guess. Conversation for another time, maybe.

"But you could just ask," you tell her, palms up. You're having a hard time processing everything right now. "About all the shit, and fuck, Jade, I tried, didn't I? To lay all our shit bare, and I know it was shitty of me, going on and on, but -"

"That's the problem, Davesprite!" And you've gotten so used to people calling you Dave, you just want to be Dave again. She finally comes over, hesitates, and then sits down on the floor before you, and fuck, John's dad, or Jane's dad, or any dad, should really consider a second fucking sofa in this barren-ass living room. "The problem isn't that I don't want to know, it's that everyone treats me like I SHOULD know."

Her eyes are big and sad and green and you feel guilt bubble in your stomach. "How am I supposed to know how I feel if everyone keeps telling me how  _they_ feel about what I did! Or didn't do! Or, or whatever!" She throws her hands up again, waves them around wildly. "It's like I don't even get a chance to decide! I don't even know why Dave's so mad at me right now!"

"I am not," Dave says, too quickly, defensive.

"Yes you are," you, and Rose, and Jade all say at once, and he scowls.

"Look, okay, maybe I'm starting to realize it'll sound really douchey if I just say it -"

"Then get it out now, before I go insane!" Jade snaps. "Both of you are so fucking cryptic, all the time! Always dancing around the issues! Always saying everything is fine so I won't worry, even when it's not!"

"You tried to kill the Mayor!" Dave blurts, and then covers his mouth, covers his face.

Are you - is he serious right now?

"Okay," Jade says slowly, but she sounds completely perplexed "I vaguely recall that. But I was also being really evil then, I think, and I guess I am sorry for almost killing your friend."

"He wasn't just my friend, he was The Mayor," Dave says, and Christ, you look at Rose, because you have no clue what the fuck his actual issue is. He sounds really beat up about it, anyway.

Rose rolls her eyes magnificently, comes to sit next to Dave on the couch. Pats his back. Pat pat. "Dave, maybe now isn't the best time. I'm absolutely positive Jade would never do anything to hurt him whilst in her right mind. And surely now the Mayor is safe and happy out there in paradox space."

"He fucking better be," comes Dave's muffled response. "Or I will literally fucking cry."

Rose looks like she's trying not to laugh, but you feel weird and kind of uncomfortable, so you look at Jade instead.

She's glaring back at you, hard, and you feel disappointment roll off her in waves. "You lied to me, Dave," she says quietly. "About your brother. Rose told me the truth." Her eyebrows bunch up and her lip quivers. "I'm not a little kid, you know! I don't need to be protected from stuff. You and Dave don't have to treat me like I can't handle hard shit, because you certainly can't, and neither can John!"

And you hadn't noticed John, before, standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking hesitant and a little out of place.

"Uh," he says. "Roxy threw me out."

You can't help the pathetic laugh that bubbles out from that. "Well, fuck, dude, you're just in time, why don't you get your ass over here for some hard truths and real Jerry Springer bullshit."

He doesn't like that, you can tell, but after a glance at Rose - and of course he'll listen to her, ugh - he wanders over cautiously, comes to lean against the arm of the chair on her side. "I don't really know if I'm cool with you guys talking about me behind my back," he says, and you laugh again, and it's so fucking mean.

Jade gets to him first. "That is literally what you and everyone else have been doing! It's like you forget I'm not actually that Jade, even though, I guess, technically, I am! That my John,  _my_ Davesprite, they both fucking _died,_  and I spent three years thinking it was  _my_ fault!"

And. And shit, you hadn't thought of it that way, hadn't spared a thought for how she must have felt, and you should have. You should have because this Jade isn't just Not-Your-Jade, she's Not-Your-Jade-Once-Removed, and as far as she's concerned, you're not _her_ Davesprite. You should have thought about it because you know exactly how it fucking feels, losing John, and losing Jade, and you feel like shit now, on top of everything else.

"Jade," you say, and when no one else speaks, you push forward. "I'm really sorry. Not just for, for not thinking about your feelings, when it came to the dating stuff, or the memory stuff, because fuck, that's really unfair, and I am so fucking sorry. But for not thinking about the people you lost. The versions of me 'n John."

You push up your shades so she can see your eyes, see you're completely fucking serious. "I know how that feels, and it fucking sucks. I'm sorry."

Jade looks like she's about to cry, and she doesn't protest when John drops to the floor, puts an arm around her shoulder. They were always more comfortable with each comforting each other than you were.

"We sucked, though, too," John says, and he looks at you the same way he did in the car. "And I know you were being a huge dick because of your weird bird shit or whatever, but we could have..." He sighs, and you think it's the first time you've seen John look so tired. "We could've been better friends. I was really wrapped up in all the stuff with my Dad, and I just felt trapped and..." He shrugs. "Anyway. It wasn't cool. I'm sorry, Dave."

"Okay," you say, and it isn't a laugh, and this time you don't mind having Dave's leg against yours. "We should probably talk later about how my issues were literally never about being a bird, and more about how fucking depressed I was." You wince. "Am. Uh. Still, but maybe not as much?"

You drop your gaze because you've been bottling this up for so long, and because it's all your feelings, all your anger and resentment and the heavy, leaden weight sitting on your chest. "You guys never really treated me like I was the real Dave, even though I was, and am, especially now. And maybe I felt like I didn't deserve it? Because I had given up my spot in the timeline to save you, and reminding you of that would be shitty, but it hurt so fucking much that none of you seemed to -" Your eyes burn, and you bite the inside of your cheek.

"But I didn't have to act like that. I shouldn't have broken up with you without telling you how I felt, Jade. And John, fuck, dude. That shit with your dad? I am so fucking sorry about that. I don't know what I was thinking, or doing, or trying to do. I'm sorry, guys."  
And it's kind of a shitty apology, and you could go all day, you really could, have been holding this all in for so long, but you stop yourself, because you don't want to cry, especially not in front of Dave, and _especially_ not in front of Rose.

And then you're covered in a cloud of hair, the smell of lemongrass, and Jade's arms are a bit too strong as she crushes you to her chest.

"I am sorry, Dave," she says, and she IS crying, and you feel like a dick even though it's only sort of your fault (it is completely your fault). "For all the things I do remember, and for the things I don't. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you, and that I didn't notice how bad you were feeling. Even if you didn't tell me. It takes a bad friend not to notice."

"I think this is where you are supposed to say 'group hug', and make everyone laugh," Rose says to Dave, and he sighs loudly, dramatic as always. No surprise there.

"If I gotta do everything around here. C'mon, Egbert, you heard the lady, let's get the fuck IN here."

And then Dave's horrible noodles wriggle around your middle, and John is laughing, but he sounds a little choked up, and you smell rain, the scent of ozone, as he flops his head on top of yours, arms joining Dave's to crush you and Jade together into a StriHarlbert conglomerate.

"I'm sorry, too," he mumbles. "To both of you, and also, pretty much everyone else. When I was trying to - to fix shit that got all messed up. Sometimes I feel like I made things worse."

"Yeah," you sigh, and bury your nose in Jade's hair, don't think about the fact that John might not actually notice his godtier powers in the works (you have no idea how to start  _that_ conversation). "But we're all alive now, right?"

"You are all dreadful at apologies and affirmations," Rose sighs, from the top of the pile. Crank that baby up to StrilonHarlbert, your ball of sweaty teenage angst is finally complete.

"Definitely," you agree, and you're glad no one can see how your eyes sting at the corners, how you're probably ruining Jade's hair. "But I think it counts for something that we're all trying so damn hard."

And you are, and you will, and there's definitely still shit that needs to get sorted. You still need to tell Jade everything that has happened, now, and you need to talk to them about being. Being not you. But that can wait.

And you're not happy, not exactly, but in this moment, trapped beneath all your friends, and yourself, you feel just a little bit lighter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to everyone for being a lil patient as I prepared for the holiday coming up here tomorrow. I'm in wrapping paper hell.


	20. westbound wallop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirk says sorry, and unlearns some of his own predjuces against himself. Forgiveness, for anyone, can be a long damn road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please no more apologies, the author says, after writing a fic about saying you're sorry  
> I feel like this chapter is a little biased, but here we are!  
> warnings for Dirk's stereotypical self-hate and Jake being kind of a douche. But like. It'll get better.  
> Happy post-Christmas!!

Roxy drags you by the hand up the stairs, following after John, and you think about how you promised Dave you would stay with him, how you’d be there if he wanted you to be, how you’re fucking it up right now, fuck. Fuck. But you can’t pull away now, not with the steel in Roxy’s grip, not with the way your heart is starting to race, your palm going damp. Being a teenager is fucking disgusting, and this stress-induced sweating makes your skin crawl, makes you long for a shower. You wonder, absently, if Jane’s water pressure is still better than yours.

“Rox,” you try, but your words get stuck in your throat, breath shallow, chest tight.

You cannot do this.

You cannot talk to Jake right now, you’re not ready, you don’t have a plan, you haven’t decided what to say, how you’re going to apologize, and how can you, properly? With Hal gone, with you unable to justify how fucked up you were, and how you orchestrated the whole thing like some kind of vainglorious circus ringleader.

You cannot do this.

If you’re being honest with yourself (and ain’t that a rare note at the bottom of a long list detailing the contrary), you don’t really want to. It’s embarrassing. Thinking about it makes your stomach turn over, reminds you of every stupid ass thing you ever said. You pretty much spilled your entire guts to the guy. You  _yelled_ at him. You never yell. But fuck, he was all. You don’t know. High on candy or whatever so you don’t even know if anything you said counted.

And that’s the worst part of it all. The first time you were able to lay out all your emotions, lay out all your problems that had been building and building for not just weeks but _months_ , and he was probably way too fucking high to even fully comprehend all of it. But what do you know? You haven’t asked him.

Shit, you haven’t spoken since. Since after you came back to life, you guess. And you weren’t really speaking much at all then, neither (sore throat, haha).

You have not slept in three days, and you think you might be a hair and a half away from an honest to god panic attack. Huh.

“Dirk, can you please hold it together long enough to get up these dang stairs?” Roxy says gently, and you realize you’ve faltered in your steps.

“Sorry,” you murmur, and you must be an absolute fucking mess, because she actually looks really worried, and that’s the last thing you ever wanted.

You think about what Bro said to you, black text scraping against your head and your ego, and you take your hand back with a pinched smile, climb the rest of the stairs with your eyes on your feet.

You can do this.

You’re going to do this and you’re not even going to make it all about you.

(Even though, theoretically, you could, and maybe you should, because it is specifically YOUR problem.)

“Hey, Jane! Jake! Got a special delivery for you!” John pushes open a door at the end of the hall that definitely didn’t exist before, and you feel yourself physically gulp as he swings it open to reveal them, and they’re.

Uh.

Just.

Yikes.

Jane is sitting on her recently moved bed, it seems, hands knit together, lips pressed into a thin line, eyes focused on the poster on the far wall. She looks miserable.

Jake, in contrast, stands by the window, about as far as he can get from her without leaving the room, and fuck, there he is, and at least he’s not wearing that silly ass godtier outfit (and god, what an ass, are you right or are you right) anymore.

The AC unit probably isn’t helping the situation, but the atmosphere in the room is ice fucking cold, and you can practically fucking smell the unease from here (though to be fair, that could be the teenage hormones).

Jane looks up on your entry, and you can see her eyes light up, brows raising from their scrunched position, cheeks dimpling against her will. There she is, that’s your gal. You fight off a smile and a wave. You can’t fucking help it, you have no idea what’s wrong with you.

“Oh, yes,” she manages, mechanical, stiff. “Thank you, John.” Her eyes flick towards Jake, who has turned to see you, and fuck, you wish he hadn’t for how the expression on his face goes tight and uncomfortable.

Fuck.

Fuck fuck _fuck_.

But Roxy pushes forward, because she’s your strongest, best, most beautiful fucking friend in the whole world, who isn’t afraid of nothing and keeps you grounded, even at your worst. “Jake! Get your dumbass over here and give me a hug!”

Right. It’s not about you. Roxy missed Jake, too. You’re all friends here.

You hope.

You desperately, desperately hope.

“Hi, Roxy,” he says, and you think he sounds meek, keeps looking between you and her and Jane, and you feel like a fucking loser all over again.

Fuck.

“Wow, I really expected more tears than this,” John jokes, elbows you tentatively.

Because you are not completely without humor, you turn your head slowly, give him your most deadpan stare.

He only looks mildly uncomfortable. “Okay, maybe not from you.” Rolls his eyes, no real fear there. You’re relieved. “I always forget how uptight you Striders are about your Coolkid shtick.”

And because Jane’s soft smile is fading away and because Jake is grinning at Roxy, and you cannot stop fucking meddling, and you feel weird and the urge to control just keeps growing, you decide, for today, that you are not going to be the tightass in this situation. It’s not about you.

“The only uptight person here is your Nanmasister, who ain’t even bothered to fucking welcome me to her abode properly. Seriously, Jane? You let all these people into your room without a single hug for any of us? Not even a little one? Shit, at this point I’d take a pity side-hug, anything. And after we welcomed you so warmly into our felicitous family home. For shame, Crocker. And you call yourself a lady.”

And you know what? Yeah, you have fucking boundary issues, and a hug always sounds good until you’re trapped in one and you want out but don’t know how to politely detach. And yeah, Dave is pretty much the only person who seems to know the exact moment you’re ready to let go before even you do, but.

But you cannot watch Jane make that sad little face in her brand new bedroom, in her own fucking house, so you open your arms like a broken-ass video game model and walk across the room all on your own, feet dragging like lead, face not kind enough for this gesture.

Jane lets out an amused snort as you drape yourself over her, and you think about Bro, bent at the waist to accommodate Nanna, how you could never be surprised at that gentleness in his face like everyone else seemed to be. You’ve seen him with Mom, why would his relationship with another Jane be any different?

And wow, that’s something you’re going to have to face. Nanna Egbert is, without a doubt, as kind and wonderful as her younger counterpart. But to see Jane like that... you don’t know.

“Strider,” she says now, as her hands pat gently at the lower center of your back, where she can reach, “your house was barren of anything close to what I’d call ‘warm’ or ‘felicitous’.”

“That is literally so fucking rude, and I am absolutely flabbergasted that you would ever imply I would forget to have Dave clean up our room before your visit.” But you’re almost smiling now, into her hair where no one else can see it. She smells like strawberry shampoo, a little like sugar coating. They were probably baking again. Haha.

“I don’t think your room was the problem,” Jane laughs, pushes you away a little to stare up at you sternly. The effect is dulled somewhat by the smile that tugs at the corner of her mouth. “Tell me you’ve gone grocery shopping since I was last there and I will not lecture you right now.”

You can’t, so you don’t, because lying would be... bad, you think. You’re trying not to do that so much. Lie, manipulate things in your favor. You’re so tired, you can’t even get your brain to come up with a convincing distraction.

“Auntie Ro-Lal can’t cook,” says Roxy, to the rescue, but she sounds absolutely gleeful, launches herself onto the bed and rolls until she’s curled around Jane’s legs. “Well. Okey, that might not be completely true, because her hangover cure food? Fucking bomb. But I’ve never actually seen her cook anything else, an’ if she can’t cook for beans, I’m bettin’ Mr. Big Bad Strider is absolutely useless, lol.”

“Dude, Dave has never eaten anything that didn’t come out of a can, bottle, or a box and we all know it,” John says, and you almost forgot he was there, leaning in the doorway, this little smile playing on his face. Relief, amusement. He was probably worried about Jane, you think. Christ, they wear their emotions like fucking billboard messages. How do they live like this?? He looks at Jake instead of all of you. “Jake, you grew up alone after your Grandma, right? Did you ever learn to cook?”

Jake opens his mouth and all of you look at him, and you use it as an excuse to check for... You don’t know. Changes? Something different? Anything? You guess? It’s been four months, so something has to have changed, right? But he’s just the same as always, maybe a little bit scruffier around the edge of his chin.

(You’ll never grow a beard properly, you think, or wouldn’t know, anyway, because Bro is constantly in Depression 5 o’clock Shadow Mode, and you’ve never actually caught him shaving, don’t know if he does at all or if he’s just somehow willed his body to  _do_ that.)

You watch Jake struggle to speak and wonder if it’d be better if you just left all together. Maybe go find Bro. Beg him to criticize you more so you have an excuse to cry or some horseshit. You’d both probably enjoy it, anyway.

But John is truly a friendleader among gods, and his smile is patient, unwavering. Kid might be a little insensitive about shit, but he’s got a good heart and an alright head on those shoulders.

Jake’s guard drops a tick, and he rubs the back of his neck self-consciously. “Honest to Betsy, John, the truth is a bit shameful, really. Let us just say I have had enough of pumpkins for the rest of my life, however long that’ll be now.” He pauses to think. “Do we still grow up, as gods?”

“Good fucking question,” you say before you can stop yourself, and immediately feel a little bit of yourself die inside.  
Roxy nudges at you lightly, and you pull away from Jane entirely, let her keep her hand on your back, fingers in your shirt like an anchor.  
“Jane and Dave are currently the only ones who freely know how to use their powers. And ‘know’ is a bit of an over-exaggeration, there, since we haven’t really had time to test it, nor do I feel like we should. Pokin’ the bear and all that.” You do not look at John. You should really mention something to him, but maybe not right here, in the middle of Jane’s room, with all the boxes and clothes neatly folded on the floor. Just in case he doesn’t take it well. “And since we have no idea what this mess of a world actually is, or means, I’d say we’re pretty much waitin’ for the other shoe to drop. Unless it has, and nobody else fuckin’ noticed.”

You try to pretend you are not waiting for Jake to take the bait, to just play along with you a little longer. _C’mon, English, let’s just be civil for five more fucking minutes, c’mon, prove we can still be friends. Please._

“Uh,” he says, and you feel your shoulders start to curl in. “Yeah. Yes, you’re quite right, old chap. In regards to the confounding nature of this blasted game, and the supposed reward we were to receive. I’ve not experienced much in the way of godly powers.” He laughs a little, rubs at the place where you know his tattoo is. “Though I suppose that’s to be expected, given my predilection towards hopelessness.”

And.

And okay, you’re used to wallowing in your own shit, you’re completely used to self-hate and all-consuming feelings of worthlessness and the general apathy towards the idea of bettering yourself, from time to time. Everyone slips, everyone falls. But this is fucking bullshit.

You open your mouth, but Roxy beats you to it. “That’s fuckin’ bullshit, Jake English, and we both know it.”

“Uh,” John says, loudly, and you think maybe he got the hint, that this is about to go south very fast. “Hey, c’mon, Jake, we talked about this! No reason to go feeling down about shit that’s all in the past and stuff. We’re all here now, right?”

And you saw John, in the car. How he sorta-kinda-not-really tried to apologize to Dave, how it was clear he’s still holding a grudge of some kind or another, and you are aware of how absolutely hypocritical his words are right now. “John,” you say, honey sweet, channel all of the insincerity that drips from Bro’s lips across your words, “don’t you think it’d be best if you joined your little friends? Downstairs? Somewhere else?”

John frowns, and you see his mouth twist in a way that is the same almost slashy-face that you’ve only ever seen Roxy make. “Okayyyy, well first of all? That was pretty fucking rude,  and definitely uncalled for. What’s your problem, bro?”

“I don’t have a -” you start, Stop. Pinch the bridge of your nose.

Roxy to the rescue (again), jumping to her feet. “John, sweetie, for real tho, you haven’t seen your buds in how long? Sounds like the perfect opportunity!”

He hesitates, digs his heels in when she turns him by the shoulders. “Well, I don’t know. Jade and Dave seemed kinda -”

“Great!” Roxy says loudly, and she is bodily pushing him out of Jane’s room now. “Maybe they need you to talk, like I need these idiots to talk! Bye, John!” And she slams the fucking door in his face.

You would laugh, if you weren’t now trapped in this room with Roxy blocking one exit and Jake standing in front of the other.

“Talk,” she commands, when you all stare blankly at her.

“Uh,” you say.

“Um,” Jake says, scratches absently at his chin. “Maybe Dirk and I should pop outside for a hot minute? If you think that’s a good idea, we do have quite the load to discuss, after all.”

Roxy’s eyes are like lasers, sharp as anything, and maybe Rose didn’t get that all from you, for the tight stubbornness to her posture. “But that’s not fair,” she says, and your entire brain grinds to a halt.

Uh.

What?

“Roxy,” you start.

“It’s -” She huffs, presses her lips together, puts her hands on her hips. “Don’t u think at this point it kind of like, involves us too??”

You cannot help it. You frown. Is she serious with this right now? She knows how much you already don’t want to fucking do this. “I’d say I think that’s a bit presumptuous of you to assume -”

Jane’s hand in your shirt gives a tug. “Dirk.” A warning, and you snap your mouth shut.

“Maybe Roxy’s right, after all,” Jake says, but he sounds hesitant, and you watch him struggle with how exposed he is, nowhere to hide, nothing to lean against. He crosses his arms. “See now, the thing is, I thought I understood. Or was starting to understand, anyhow. That I’d be okay by myself, if I just stopped bothering all of you, all together. And if I’m being square with you, living with... Uh, let’s call him Grandpa, I guess? Has only enforced that.” His eyebrows furrow, and he looks down. He looks frustrated, maybe a little sad. Your heart, cruelly, does not ache. “But Jade says that’s not healthy.”

“She’s fucking right,” Roxy snaps, and she hasn’t moved from the door. You get the feeling she’s not going to, any time soon. “We’re literally your only friends, and you’re one of ours, and you think that’s smart? Closin’ yourself off like that? Do you know how scared I was, when u just stopped messaging me?”

Jake grimaces, and the expression is still as unpleasant as when you caught him making it during the game, back when you were dating and you just kept talking because. Because you don’t know. You were lonely, you guess. “I know that. But I see, now, how I really bollocksed it all up. I was so selfish and consumed with my own thoughts and I just. Think I was so lonely, out there on that island, and having two people...” He glances at Roxy. “Three people like me so much felt. Good. Nice, even if I didn’t understand it, and boy howdy, it feels like a bit of a farce now.” He laughs, but it’s a bad sound, unfriendly and self-deprecating. “But I do. Get it, that is. How absolutely downright uncouth I have been to all three of you. I dicked up our friendship something awful. I should have talked to you, and instead of ignoring our problems, confronted them head on like the brave lad I always said I was.”

He drops his shoulders, his arms, and looks at the ground. “If none of you ever want to speak to me again, I will completely understand.”

“Jake, you’re an idiot,” Jane laughs, harsh, sardonic. She lets go of your shirt, puts her head in her hands. “You can’t just beat up on yourself and call it an apology! That’s not how they work!”

“Uh,” he says, shifts nervously. God, he really is just absolutely dense sometimes, isn’t he. “But aren’t I the problem...?”

“No,” you say, at the same time Jane says, “Yes.”

She gives you a long-suffering look before turning back to Jake. “The thing is, we were never together, and so you can’t just give. Give a blanket statement that doesn’t apply to both of us! You hurt me and Roxy both with your ignorance, and all three of us for how you ignored us.”

And maybe. Maybe you’re not an expert at relationships, and maybe you are definitely to blame for a good chunk of this shit, but Jane’s got a good damn point, and you can’t stop yourself or the words that come out of your stupid ass mouth. “She’s right,” you say, and his head snaps up to look at you, and you press forward. Idiot. Idiot, idiot. “The laughably long amount of time you and I spent together ignoring each other was bad enough, but to find out you were unloading all our shit onto my only other two friends in the entire world? That’s fucking low, dude. I ain’t a saint, I did my fair share of ignoring, but I  _never_ talked about you like that.”

“Well, I -” he begins, but you keep going.

Stupid.

“And you abso-fucking-lutely shouldn’t have been pesterin’ Rox this whole time, not after we got back, over and over, acting like she was your last bastion against the deluge of imaginary hate you assumed Jane and I had waiting for you. It’s just the same shit, all over again,” you say. Curl your hands into fists. “You understand that, Jake?”

“Well I’d hardly have called you charming, _Strider_ ,” he snaps. And there’s bite in that, sass, and you deserve that, expect it, almost  _want_ it. Frustration. Anger. Anything, as long as he’s being honest with you. "What with how you treated our relationship, how you prattled on and on about yourself, never left room for anyone else, least of all me, and how if you weren't pestering me, your robot sidekick sure as heck was!"

You count down from ten, pull your nails from your palms, put your hands up. You can only be honest here. You will not let yourself fall apart. You are so tired.  “Listen, I’m not saying I definitely don’t deserve that, because honestly? I came in here thinkin’ I was gonna lay it out as completely my fault.” And you were, and you’ve been obsessing over it for weeks and weeks. “But the more you lay the blame on yourself, the more pissed off I feel. Sayin’ you wanted peace and quiet, how you’d rather be alone and shit, but you never said anything to me? And maybe I don’t understand your nonfucking verbal cues because I.” You stutter a little, feel Jane’s hand curl back into your shirt. An anchor. Grounding.

You take a deep breath, you drop your hands back into fists, you move forward.

“Because I’ve been alone a long damn time with no one to talk to. In person, face to face. Y’all were my only damn friends in the entire fucking world. Literally. And you were supposed to be there for me, Jake.” You laugh, and it’s pathetic, caustic, burns in your throat. “All according to my plan, and Hal’s, I guess. And I truly am sorry about him, and by proxy, myself. I’ll be the first one to fucking say it, because someone has to, and because we’re a fucking mess. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, guys. For all the ways I let you down, Roxy. For not being there for your in regards to the drinking shit, and being a coward and not just outright tellin’ you how I felt. And, and for. For all the stuff I pushed onto all of you, but especially you, Jake, for making you feel like you had to date me and shit. And you Jane. I pushed you both so much harder, and I don’t know why. I don’t know what I was thinking.” Your throat feels froggy, your eyes burn at the corners. God, you must be really fucking tired. “I’m sorry.”

Jake’s expression is open, and it seems softer around the edges, and he’s almost the boy you loved, just for a minute. When he speaks, his voice is sad, a little wet. “You didn’t make me, Strider. I quite fancied you, as well. I -”

“But the point is I feel like I did,” you say, shake your head. “I shouldn’t have panicked and suffocated you when I thought you were losing interest. Or were, anyway. I get it. But I shouldn’t have forced you into that corner in the first place with all my horseshit. I’m trying not to be like that anymore. I don’t want a relationship, dude. I just want my friend back.” You quirk your lips into a smile. “Minus the angst, and maybe some of the weird robot shit.”

“Well.” He’s almost grinning now, stupid crooked teeth and all. “I’d be honored to be considered for the friend zone. I just.” He flexes his hands. “Might need a little time. You can punch me if you want,” he says suddenly, and he definitely sounds way too excited about it. “Old school style, like in the movies, after the dame has her heart broken. Er, but you’re not a dame, I suppose. And neither am I.”

You do not roll your eyes at him, but you know what?

Yeah, you will fucking punch him.

But not for you.

(Okay, maybe a little for you.)

You flash step because Jane would never let you do this on your own, and you slug Jake in the face so hard he goes down like a sack of potatoes. You do not smile for how you definitely grew since you last saw him, and for how your arm follows through with perfect grace. You didn’t even practice that. “That was for Jane’s birthday party,” you drawl, flex your hand. Not broken, but dude’s got a jaw of steel, Jesus fuck.

“I,” he chokes. “What. Strider!”

“Haha,” you say, and then Roxy’s hugging you around the middle.

“You’re an idiot,” she says into your back, but you feel the tears dampening your shirt. “A big, stupid, soft-hearted idiot.”

“Am not,” you say, and you will not fucking cry, not here, not now.

“You are, a little,” Jane says, and she shuffles across the room in her bunny slippers, how is she that fucking cute, and she helps Jake to his feet, gives him twinkling eyes and a mischievous smile. “But you never actually apologized, Jake. And perhaps that’s my fault, somewhat, that I haven’t either. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you how I felt. And that I scared you something awful, back when she was. Was.” Her lip trembles, and Jake covers her hands with his, gives a squeeze. He’s an idiot, but you are still friends, deep down in there.

“I know, Jane, and you’re right. I really flayed myself there before all of you, and didn’t do a bang up job of actually saying ‘sorry’, did I?” He pulls her gently, gives her time to run, but she doesn’t, and Jake hugs her, presses his cheek to her head. “I’m sorry, all of you. Dirk, Roxy. And Jane, old gal. Will you forgive me?”

“Humph,” she says, voice muffled. “How did everyone end up so much taller than me?”

“That’s not actually a yes or no, Janey,” you say, and a laugh bubbles out that is giddy, a little hysterical. You’ll all be okay, you think. You drag them towards you by Jake’s shoulder, trap him around the head under your arm so you can rub your knuckles across his scalp. “You want I should punch ‘im again? Maybe shrink his ego enough he drops an inch?”

“If anyone needs an ego-otomy, Strider, it’s definitely you.” Roxy wriggles her way into the middle of the hug and you know you should probably work harder on some real apologies, maybe take them aside one by one and drag out the mental list you’ve been building since April.

But right now you have your friends back together, and you can smile, and you know Jake isn’t ready, maybe, to be such good friends again, and that he and Jane will have to talk later, just like you, but you feel. Better. A lot fucking better.

And that’s definitely fuckin’ something.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also there was a second half to this but it's such a tone shift that I am separating it to it's own chapter!  
> Love hearing from you guys, always. You're awesome as hell <3  
> (ps thank u peonies for being my personal cheerleader as I dragged this on for days trying to figure out how to write this chapter. it was really hard and annoying and I appreciate you)


	21. fractals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirk sees something he's pretty sure he shouldn't, Jane takes over a company she might not want, and Bro gets really, really fucking high.  
> In this house, we do not condone underage drug use.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, it's another weed chapter. CW for underage recreational drug use, and just like. Some dudes being high at inappropriate times.  
> Also, anything that has recently been said about Jake or Grandpa or Nanna can choke and die I don't want to hear it, and if you haven't read all the weird timeline shit, I don't recommend it lol

You don’t know if it’s because they had a chance to talk or if you’re projecting, but Dave and DS both look happier next time you see them, when you find them sitting all scrunched together and playing video games on the TV.

You wonder if you should bother them, John and Jade cross-legged on the floor, leaning against Dave’s legs, Rose all tucked up on the far side of the couch and DS wedged against the arm like he belongs there. They’re finally here with their friends, no one is fucking fighting, maybe you should just -

But Roxy has zero qualms about interrupting, launching herself straight at the couch, flopping across them, feet in DS’s lap, head in Rose’s. You are part of a family of blonde idiots and you love it, and you can never tell them.

You come to hover nearby, try to think of a cool way to broach the subject of their Talk. Fail, settle for sincerity. You lean on the arm of the couch so you’re eye level with DS. “Hey,” you say softly, and Dave, squished in the middle, pretends not to listen for half a second. “You okay now?”

“Better, at least,” DS whispers and you see him smile, just a little. “It uh. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. How ‘bout you? You figure your shit out?”

“I think,” you start, take a deep breath. Dave’s fingers wiggle behind DS’s back and you give them a little solidarity bump. “I think it’s gonna take us some time, but we’ll be okay. We’re gonna make it as friends. Or die trying, anyway.”

“Hell yeah,” Dave says, way too loud to be discreet, but no one tells him to shut up. They’re probably used to it.

Rose brushes her hands through Roxy’s hair and you like that they both look happy that way, and so you just settle down there, on the arm of the couch, and watch Jade crush it at some shitty racing game for awhile. Lean back at an angle so your leg is pressed against DS, your elbow on Dave’s arm.

You could get used to this, you think. The ease of chilling with other people your age, how Jane and Jake settle down on either side of Jade, how Jane smiles, between her and John, how Jake hoots and hollers when she passes the other cars.

It’s nice.

It feels nice.

Maybe the plane ride was worth the trouble, after all.

  
It’s not til later that you realize the real problem here, and that is that Dave, in his chair, is not getting up those stairs by himself.

“We can have a sleepover downstairs,” Jane offers, hesitant, worrying at her lip.

“No, that’s,” Davesprite chokes, turns pink in the ears. You try not to feel too protective. He’s just making friends, and you need to chill. “It’s cool, I can like. Well. Okay, I can’t actually walk. I can chill down here, though, I don’t mind.”

“No the fuck you cannot,” Dave says, kicking his chair wheel. It’s a bad habit he’s started, and you think he probably shouldn’t. Do that. “I don’t care if I have to drag your dumbass up the stairs myself, you’re coming.”

“If you touch me, I will piss on you, so fucking help me,” DS says, and he kicks him, leg fully extended.

Dave leaps back, smacks him, gets kicked again for his trouble.

“Dave, if you can use your legs, why are you even in a wheelchair?” John asks, like an absolute moron, and you think yeah, okay, maybe Jake isn’t the only one getting slugged today.

DS pauses, stares at him with an open mouth, and Dave just whispers, “Dude.”

“It’s called muscle atrophy, Egbert, you ableist troglodyte,” comes your voice, but two pitches deeper. And there’s Bro, leaning against the wall by the door, expression neutral and hair sticking up sideways from under his hat. Huh. You’re intrigued, but not willing to point it out in case he’s still feeling irascible. “Just because he can kick your ass doesn’t mean he can chase you down afterwards. Don’t be fucking rude.”

John doesn’t answer because DS scowls, pulls his wheelchair around to face Bro. “Fuck off, dude, I can call my own friend an idiot without your help.”

Bro raises his shoulder in a shrug. “Ain’t my fault his daddy never taught him goddamn manners.”

“Language, Strider,” one of the Dads (you’re not entirely sure which is which now, but you’re not going to mention it) says, and he stops to smile at all of you. “John’s Nan saw fit to make dessert tonight, but we thought you kids might enjoy some pizza for dinner. How about it?”

There is a resounding cheer and this time, when you look at Bro, he raises his eyebrows. Yeah, there’s no way he didn’t have something to do with this. You give him a nod, he returns it with the tip of his hat. It’s so fucking extra and yet so completely him (and by extension, you) that you struggle to hide a smile.

Mom literally saunters out holding a scratchpad, which she then uses to tally pizza requests, and Dad (now identified) Egbert hesitates for a moment. Opens his mouth to speak, but Bro bumps his arm with a set of knuckles.

“I’ll take it from here, Bigbert. You and Lalonde get the pizza. Crocker, your presence is formally requested in the dining area.”

Jane goes completely still, and your heart aches for how she looks round at you, like you’re supposed to be able to change something about this situation. “Can I...” she starts, and she sounds so small, so unlike herself, unsure and sad. You trip and flounder over yourself, try to think of something to say.

“We’re coming with,” Roxy says, standing up and somehow dragging you along. Welp. At least one of you is on it. You look at Jake, but he winces. That’s a no, then. He’s got his reasons, you reckon. What are you gonna do? Force him? Not fucking again.

Dave grabs the hem of your shirt and furrows his brow at you. You give a tiny shake of the head. It’s okay, your sort of signed up for this. He presses his lips together, you tap his knuckles with your own. It’s okay.

Bro isn’t impressed, doesn’t really seem to exhibit anything about this at all, and that makes you feel worse. “Okay,” is all he says, and then he leans back to push open the door, inclines his head. “At your leisure, then, your fucking highness.”

“Language,” Dad says again, but Bro is silent as Jane takes Roxy’s hand and leads you in a chain around him and into the kitchen.

Jane’s Dad waits for you there at the table, with Nanna and a man you have never met but a face you know intimately. You have never actually seen Jade’s grandpa before, but you kind of get it now.

“Well I’ll be damned, Strider, he’s the spittin’ image of you, straight up to the hair!” he laughs, and his voice is booming, his accent strange, and you try not to wince, or really look directly at him at all. It’s the same kind of uncanny effect as Nanna, where you know he’s Jake, sort of, his skin worn and brown, hair a shock of white, and you really just. Can’t fucking deal with these ancient versions of your friends. That sure is a fucking mustache right there, sitting on his lip, huh?

You look at Bro, but his face is placid stone, complete disinterest. “Yup,” is all he says, and you wonder, because of course you do, what the history is there.

He pulls a chair out for Jane, putting her between her dad and Nanna, leaving you and Roxy standing there, feeling vaguely useless as you sidle up behind her.

“Why are you even here?” you ask, and it sounds so much nastier than you really mean it to, and yeah, maybe you’re still fucking mad at him for earlier, but you are completely justified in that. You think.

Roxy nudges you, and you carefully do not glance her way.

Bro doesn’t even look at you. “Neutral witness.” Clears his throat, is now  _very_ pointedly looking anywhere else. “Egbert asked me to.”

Okay, now you  _definitely_ get it. It’s less a You-and-Him thing and more a Him-and-Nanna thing. You have absolutely zero reason to feel smug about this, given your predisposition to listening to both Jane and Roxy, but you do think it’s a little funny, anyway.

“Oh, yes, Strider will do anything dear Jane asks of him, but heaven forbid I request a tussle, and I get told to ‘shove it up my arse, old man’,” Grandpa huffs, with a magnificent eye roll, and Nanna smacks him on the hand.

“Oh, Jake, behave yourself! You don’t need to bully Dirk just because you haven’t had a nap!”

Grandpa Harley splutters, something like “Well I never!” under his breath, but another look from Nanna and his grumblings cease.

“Forgive him, he’s had a long journey,” Nanna says, and there’s a glimmer in her eye you’d recognize anywhere. “He can be quite cranky, my little brother.”

You and Roxy sneak a peek at Bro. He keeps his shades glued to the far side of the wall.

“Ur so fucking multiverse whipped,” Roxy whispers to you, and you scowl, elbow her away.

All the legal jargon’s not really interesting, in the same way it is. Grandpa Harley has obviously invested a large portion of it in projects, including Skaianet, but Jane doesn’t really have much interest there, and what she gains and makes as official heiress is up to _her_ , now that the Condesce is out of the picture for good. Mr. Crocker and Nanna will help take care of things til she’s at least eighteen, or longer if she’s not ready, and all the money earned by Skaianet and whatever “malarkey” (Nanna and Grandpa’s word, not yours) he’s involved in will henceforth be separated from the Crocker baking empire.

This is really the first time Jane digs her heels in, face pinched, obviously uncomfortable. “Do we... Do I have to call it that?”

Nanna blinks at her, the same big blue eyes, unnaturally light, shining in a way that you’re sure matched John’s sprite perfectly. Like DS, how his eyes seem multi-layered, something  _wrong_ about the color, how it’s set over the top like a filter. She takes Jane’s hand in both of hers, presses it gently between them, the same way she had done with Bro. “We don’t have to call it anything you don’t want to, dear. It doesn’t belong to her. Not anymore.”

Grandpa clears his throat a little. “There is some measure of honor, preserving -”

“Hass,” Bro says, voice low, even, and you can hear the old man’s jaw click shut from here. He looks at Jane then, and it’s not often you see kindness there, on Bro Strider, but he offers Jane a piece of himself you’ve rarely seen him give to anyone else. “You don’t gotta do anything you don’t wanna do, Miss Crocker. S’your company now.”

“Mr. Strider is right,” Dad Crocker says, but when he smiles, Bro looks away. “This is your choice, honey. We’ll support you no matter what.”

You do not beg to see the paperwork, even though you want to, even though you want to rake over it with a careful eye for any caveats, any holes in the framing. But you’re here for support, end of story, and so you put your hand on her shoulder, give a careful squeeze.

She pats you gently back. It’s okay, she’s got this. “I don’t want to call it an empire,” Jane says, and her voice is like steel. “I want the spoon logo back where it was, we’ll say it was a publicity stunt, and I’ll spend my entire life fixing her mistakes if I have to, but I will not let her poison ruin this for me.”

“Atta girl,” Roxy whispers, holds her other shoulder, shakes it firmly. "Atta fucking girl."

Jane just nods, sharp, and when she signs her name with a flourish, you glance at Bro before you press your lips to the top of her head.

He snorts, but only maybe at you, maybe at the way Roxy drapes over her shoulders, kisses her loudly on the cheek, over and over, until she giggles.

You don’t fucking understand this guy, and it drives you crazy.

Nanna is the one who gathers all the paperwork when it’s done, who bats at Grandpa’s hands when he tries to help, who chastises him with curt words until he looks properly cowed. She’s a tough gal, she’s not your Jane, and you think the world of her, anyway.

Eventually Mom and John’s Dad poke their heads back in, pizza’s here, yes, Strider, they got the absolutely revolting order you requested, and no, no one else has even looked at it yet.

You are, despite being plenty pissed the fuck off at him, somewhat touched.

You don’t think he’s trying to make it up to you, because neither of you are especially like that. You, particularly, are more likely to write an obsessive list in your head of all the things you did wrong, and try not to do them again, without anyone ever mentioning it bugged them in the first place.

You might be a bit of a mess in a few departments, but at least you’ve got the apology section well under construction. At this rate, you’ll be finished before next spring. Dave’s gonna need a forklift to drag you out from under the weight of your own bullshit, though. Gonna have to keep you in the basement and nurse you back to health with. You don’t know. Friendship and shitty pizza, you guess. You’re fucking tired, dude. You’ve lost track of the metaphor, if you ever had any track to follow in the first place.

Still, shitty pizza and hopefully some orange fucking soda await you, and you do not stumble after Rox and Jane on your way to the living room with the rest of your friends.

The adults do not follow you.

You try not to let that bother you so much, and you can’t really figure out why it does, at all.

Curiosity, probably.

General busybodying, more likely.

The silly little doors swing shut and there are both Daves, waiting for you, and you are going to carry DS’s dumb non-bird butt up the stairs yourself if he won’t fucking listen to reason. No point in sleeping down here, Bro’ll want the couch, you’re sure, and anyway John’s bedroom is close as fuck to the bathroom. So much simpler, at least as far as you’re concerned.

  
And you do get him up the stairs, after something close to a fight between him and Dave, ended by Bro, who walks -  _walks_ \- in, picks up his wheelchair, folds it neatly, and proceeds to walk it upstairs without a word.

You don’t know what you’re expecting from that, it’s maybe a bit bolder than you would have gone, but it’s the straw that breaks Dave’s back, and he finally acquiesces to Roxy (and only Roxy) hauling him up the stairs like a sack of potatoes trapped in a fireman’s carry.

Now you just have to get through the night sleeping in a strange place.

Well.

Alright.

It isn’t that strange.

You have slept in Jane’s house before, you guess, during those five months of the game where the four of you waded through nuclear levels of bullshit that made up your broken session. It was always a little unnerving, when you did sleep, and what at first felt like a fun adventure slowly turned into a disconcerting, skeleton-themed nightmare.

Fuck, at least Jane’s planet had water. Got really fucking lucky, there.

So, sure, maybe her house is a little more palatable in John’s ice cold bedroom at one am, AC humming in the window, your face pillowed against the floor with your elbow. You should definitely feel less threatened in a suburban neighborhood on Earth, with an honest-to-god street light out on the corner of the yard, and a house full of no less than eight (8) gods, two (2) confirmed dangerous adults, and what Jane has assured you before is a pretty sturdy house alarm.

But you still can’t fucking sleep.

There’s no sense to it, really. You are safe. You know that. You know Jane, down the hall with the other girls, would never lie to you about that kind of thing. You know that Dave (both of them, probably) wouldn’t let anything happen to you, nor would you allow anything to happen to any of them.

The AC unit ain’t bothering you none, trapped under a layer of blankets with Dave’s warmth seeping into your back. You’re used to going to bed with the whoosh of a fan, almost can’t sleep without it. Well. When you sleep at all.

It’s frustrating, anyway. This limbo you live in. Close your eyes for a minute, maybe trip over a few hypnagogic hallucinations, get enough rest that your body decides it isn’t time to break down yet. Grasp at something resembling a dream, only for your brain to hemorrhage stress that snaps you awake faster’n you can say “crackerjack”. Not that you ever have. It just seems like something people from Texas should probably say.

Maybe you need some fucking medication, who knows. You’re a mess. But you can’t fall asleep now, not even three days into what’s shaping up to be a pretty gnarly run. You hope Dave’s not counting. He never really brings it up, but you can tell when he starts  _looking_  at you like. Well. Like _That_. It’s embarrassing.

Your heart thumps in your ears, follows the rhythmic sound of Dave’s breathing, leaves a measure of room for Jake’s snorts, for how John mumbles in his sleep, restless, but not afraid. It’s amusing, anyway. Could probably round this into a beat, if you tried. Squarewave’d like it, as much as he liked anything.

And fuck, where  _is_ he? What kind of shitty ass robot master are you if you can’t keep track of your own creations?

Probably not a very good one.

You could count sheep, maybe, except you don’t really want to, and you don’t have Hal here to talk to, haven’t for months, don’t have anyone to keep you company in the dark, to keep your thoughts from straying towards...

You cannot keep dwelling on your bro.

Except, of course, that you can.

It just. Doesn’t make any fucking sense. Jane’s dad is here, the dead guardians of the beta session are all fucking here.

Where’s your second chance with an estranged older brother? Do you have a right to call him estranged if you never even knew each other in the first place?

You are going to spiral like this, you know, because you have done before, and so you drag yourself up, off the sleeping bag pile you share with Dave (both of them, and fuck you love the bastards but they kick like MLS all stars), get stopped by a hand curled into your shirt.

“Dirk?” Dave slurs, eight-tenths in dreamland.

You smooth his hair back from his face with one hand, pry him loose with the other. “S’okay. I’ll be right back, promise.”

He hums, mumbles something softly, drags your side of the blanket closer to him before rolling back over. Heh. Loser.

You don’t have a plan, not really. Pace, probably. Count the new doors, new windows, potential exits. You can’t go into their rooms, fuck that, you’re not getting swat at like a fly, but you walk the length of both halls, bedrooms to bathrooms and back, and then head downstairs.

You’re halfway towards the front door, squinting in the dark (your shades definitely aren’t helping, you’re a moron, fuck), when you realize the room is completely empty. The couch is still made up all nice, some straight up hotel-level fluffed pillow BS, covers all tucked up, and someone should definitely be sleeping there.

But he’s not.

You guess he had a long nap earlier.

Fuck, is it really still the same day?

You guess it is.

Goddamn. Hello, Day Four.

There’s really no sense pretending you’re not going to look for Bro.

If he’s the only other person awake, at least you’ll have an excuse to be pissy in the morning. You do one more sweep through the kitchen, pop your head into the laundry, before you walk back towards the stairs. If you know anything (and you happen to know a metric shit ton), you know pretty much exactly where he’ll be.

  
You find Bro on the upper deck, just to the side of a partially disassembled telescope. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out he’s probably the one who did it, and you bet all your dimes and nickels he won’t put it back together again without coercion.

You smell the weed before you see it and he gives you a hazy smile, lulls his head to the side. “Hey.”

“Hey,” you say cautiously, approach on the right, just in case he - well he won’t, so it doesn’t matter.

“Mm,” he hums, pats the space beside him. You’ve seen Bro half-asleep, and you’ve seen him buzzed before, but he just looks tired now, head resting on his knees, hat tipped at an angle, eyes bleary and shades hooked into his polo. “Thought you’d find me here.”

Your hands curl on automatic, and you flex them to shake it loose, do your best not to look defensive in any way. “I wasn’t -”

“Yeah, yeah, you weren’t lookin’.” He snorts. “Sure. Well you found me, anyway. You wanna try again?”

You stare at the neatly rolled joint in his hand. Open your mouth. Close it. “How did you... We literally came directly from the airport.”

Bro lets out a sound that could be a laugh. “Please, kiddo, this is Washington. And anyway, you really think their pops is straight as all that? Dude smokes out of a pipe.”

You crack the knuckles of your left hand absently, imagine telling Jane and John any of this. Maybe they already know, who are you to say. “Hmm.”

“S’just a lil one.” He wiggles it at you, and you try not to wince when ash falls on his hand. He doesn’t even flinch. “Won’t give you more than two or three hits. Shit’s expensive. C’mon, no pressure, but you look like you need it.”

Jesus, you hate the way he looks right through you like that. It’s not infuriating, not really. Just kind of annoying, and a little embarrassing. “I,” you start. Stop. Remember months ago, on a rooftop, eyes like a sunset, panic reflected back at you. “Alright. Okay.”

Bro quirks an eyebrow. “You remember how?”

You give him a look and his smile is softer than you’re used to, amused, maybe a little too fucked up to properly care about masking his emotions.

“Yes,” you hiss.

“Okay, okay,” he snickers. “C’mon, c’mere.” Bro’s hand is warm, callused in a familiar way, and he drags you down beside him, pulls you close so your shoulders press together.

You try not to shy away. Washington apparently has zero frame of reference for what a normal night temperature should be in the summer, and you’re not shivering, but you definitely aren’t as comfortable in your shirt and pajama pants as you want to be. Bro, by contrast, radiates all his heat outwards, and you don’t mind it as much as you used to, coming in direct contact with him.

He shows you how to do it again anyway, and you think back to videos of Dave, your Dave, ripped right from twitter or fan sites. Clips of him in the bathroom at the Kodak Theatre, or a ballroom, or what you’re still pretty sure is Snoop Dogg’s backyard. They hold it the same way, blow out smoke the same way. You wonder if, paradoxically, the same person taught them how.

“You’re still not off the hook for that shit you did to me in the airport,” you tell him on your second drag. You feel okay. Maybe a little uncomfortable. You’re not used to inhaling anything like this.

“I know,” he murmurs, watching the way the smoke curls away from his fingers. There are circles under his eyes, just like yours. Exhaustion, days without sleep for no good reason other than ‘ _you just can’t.’_ He clucks his tongue, mouth curling down in clear displeasure. “I shouldn’t have fucking - What I said was -” Bro is you all the way down, quiet anger, festering self-loathing, you’re sure, you’re so sure. You’ve never been more sure. This is a man who does not like himself, bravado be damned. “I was just. Tired. Pissed off. At myself. Or something.” He rubs at his eyes, and you carefully push your shades up so you can see him clearly. He doesn’t look any less tired for it. “I don’t know.”

“If you’re trying to apologize, it sounds like absolute dog shit,” you say, try to keep your voice as close to friendly as you can. You’re still holding the joint, take another puff at it because you think you might be starting to relax, even if it’s just a little.

He snorts again. “Ouch. First of all, I’m pretty sure you’re biased. Second of all, I do have feelings, y’know.”

You hand him the joint, say, deadpan, “None that I can see,” like a liar.

He muffles a laugh as he takes a hit. “See that? Right there? That’s the fucking prejudice I’m talking about.”

You don’t say anything, and he doesn’t actually apologize to you, but it’s okay, because you can feel the muscles in your shoulders loosen, feel a pleasant buzz in your head. Your stress is muffled, like cotton between your ears. “You seem better,” you say eventually. “Than earlier.”

“Yeah,” he says around a sigh, shifts his legs til they’re folded crisscross, his elbows leaning heavy on them. It bothers you, how small he can make himself. Dude’s practically an amateur contortionist. “I have been told I’m an absolute fucking riot at night.”

“Oh, don’t I just bet,” you scoff, before you can help yourself. He’s easy to get along with like this, with both of you a little too relaxed to care that you kinda-sorta hate each other, or at least yourselves. It’s almost the same thing, you think.

“You better believe it,” he drawls, like it’s a joke, and he cannot be doing that right now, you refuse to acknowledge it. He offers you the joint again. “Here, before I smoke it all.”

You hesitate, press your lips together. There is a part of you that is acutely aware of how kinda messed up this is. “Bro, I’m still kind of a kid.”

“Yeah, I know.” He shrugs. “You’re sixteen, though.”

You have no idea what to say in reply to that. You choke, manage, “So?”

“So most kids start earlier. Look at me, super adult here, giving you permission and everything.”

You frown. He’s. This is weird. “Are you sure you’re not still drunk?”

His expression drops, mouth a straight line, eyes blank. “Dirk,” and it’s the most natural sound you’ve ever heard, “are you asking if I’m cross-faded right now?”

“I don’t really know what that means,” you admit slowly. This is weird. You feel kinda weird.

“Yeah,” he says, and he’s still hunched forward, rolls his neck til it lets out a sickening crack. “And if I have my say, you never will. No back alleys for you.”

“You seem really focused on that,” you say, because he does.

“Only when it involves Dave, I guess,” he says, shrugs again.

“And me?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Bro gives you a lopsided smile. “That’d be admitting to caring about someone else.”

“Or yourself,” you mumble.

“Or myself,” he nods. “See, you got it just fine.”

It still feels weird. “Maybe that’s a little inappropriate?”

“I ain’t your daddy, kiddo,” he snarks, rolls his eyes at you.

“I mean,” you start, like an ass, “technically -”

“Technically we’re our own dad, yeah fucking yeah,” he sighs, exasperated, drags a hand down his face. “Everyone yuck it up. Great. Just what I wanted to think about.” He takes the last hit anyway, stubs the roach (see, you can learn words too, fuck you) out on the bottom of his shoe. “You wanna head inside? This place is killing my hair vibe something harsh.”

Uh. “Uh. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Moisture in the air, who needs that?”

“Damn right,” he mutters, takes off his hat, runs his hand through his hair like that’ll save it. It does not.

“How did you get through the alarm system?” you ask on your way downstairs again, because you didn’t do shit to disable it, and nothing went off.

“Mm, not hard. If you know what you’re lookin’ for, anyway.” He puts a finger to his lips as you hit the bottom, and it’s odd, to watch him slip his shoes off, though he has no need, feet silent as he crosses the room, turns on the TV with a soft click, mutes it.

You don’t love the idea of sitting in complete darkness with the guy, so you turn on the lamp, flip your shades back down for comfort, let him sit on the couch before you. You have no plans for this. You don’t even know what you were thinking. Honestly, you don’t really care. The couch is soft, the blankets softer. It’s pretty alright.

“Hey,” Bro says after a few minutes. You’re watching Family Feud, and the closed captioning isn’t great. You hum, and he keeps talking. “It is kinda fucked up, isn’t it? That we don’t have genetic progenitors.”

You’re more surprised he knew the word in the first place. Shrug. “Mm. Neither does Roxy.”

“That’s true.” He sighs, changes the channel. Someone is losing their shit over a set of glass dishware. “Feel like she got most of the luck though, right?”

“I don’t know,” you sigh, twist your fingers together. You don’t really want to talk about it. “Roxy struggled pretty heavily with addiction from a really young age.” You roll your head over to look at him. You wonder how he broke his nose, the first time. “You don’t seem like you do.”

“I think you forget I had a little.” He hesitates, then. It’s getting less foreign to you. “A little help.”

And uh. Whoa. Okay. So you’re talking about that, you guess. “Right,” you say, sit up a little more to face him. “You uh. You cool to talk about that?”

“What, Cal?” he says, like it’s the easiest thing in the world, and you feel every muscle in your body go completely still. He just snorts, and you are thrown off guard. “Nah. I mean. Usually nah. Tell you the truth, kid, I’m baked off my ass right now.” He looks at you, and you’re struck again by the color of your own eyes. “Might make it a little easier if we’re being honest.”

“And neither of us usually are.”

“Haha.”

“Yeah.”

Bro taps his fingers on the arm of the couch, shakes his leg endlessly. He’s not watching the TV, you note. He’s doing what you do. Counting doors, windows. Christ, you really fucking hate this guy. Or just yourself, at least. “The problem is - or seems to be, maybe. I dunno. I don’t feel any less like me. I mean I am, in a way.” He finally stops, looks up at the ceiling. “I feel like shit. Tired, like I ain’t slept in eighteen years, you know?”

“Yeah,” you say, but you only kind of do.

He sighs, puts a hand over his eyes, sinks lower. “But I miss him. I know shit was fucked. But Cal was always there for me when I was a kid. When shit felt unachievable. He was my only friend.”

It’s the same shitty story reflected back at you, and you think,  _Wow, what a pair of losers we make._ “I thought Roxy was your only friend.”

That makes him not-quite laugh. “Most people aren’t born knowing each other, idiot.”

“I know that,” you snap, shove his leg. “And we weren’t born, anyway.”

“Well, you’re not wrong,” he says. Bro is restless energy, compounded anxiety, and if you weren’t so sure it was him, you’d think it was coming from you. “I don’t fully understand what Cal - what he was. Or did, or whatever. To me, or Dave, or anyone else. Don’t reckon I ever will. He’s gone now, anyhow.” He flexes his hand, his leg shakes faster. You have a feeling you should stop him. “Like I said, everything feels pretty much the same. Maybe a little more intense, I dunno. Maybe I never realized it’d gotten that fucking bad, in the first place.”

You have never felt more exposed and uncomfortable in your life. As far as you can recall, this is only the second time he’s even said Cal’s name since revival. You. Don’t know how to feel about that. “That’s really fucking intimate,” is what comes out of your mouth. “Don’t you have other people to share this with?”

“Not sober,” he drawls, and the grin aimed your way is depressingly self-deprecating. It’s wiped off his mouth in a fraction of a second, and then you are confronted with your own discomfort, reflected on his face. “You just. You said you had a Cal, growing up. Figured if anyone would understand, it’s you.”

“Yeah,” you say weakly, try not to pick at your hands. “Would you ever -”

“No,” he says, immediate, sharp, too fast, too aware. He presses his lips into a thin line, sighs out the nose. “Once upon a time, I woulda said I’d do anything to get him back. But now..” Bro bunches his eyebrows and you think he looks like Rose, like Dave, like his age, just for once. “Now that I don’t have him, I don’t really want him. I don’t know when that changed.”

It’s pretty fucked up that he kind of acknowledged that Cal was probably fucking with him, even if he doesn’t completely understand it. You scramble for something to say. “But you still love puppets,” is what comes out.

He laughs, low and easy. “Dude, fuck, you KNOW I love fucking puppets.”

He offers a fist for a bump and just this once, you take it.

“You’re not so bad, you know,” he says softly, and there’s that smile again. He still hasn’t apologized. “I shouldn’t have... Fuck, dude. It ain’t easy for me to talk about this shit.”

“I know,” you say, because it’s not easy for you, either.

“I am trying,” he says, but it sounds half-hearted.

“Yeah,” you sigh. “Me too. But you’re worse at it than I am.”

“I have years of practice,” he says, and he leans back into the couch, stretches his arms up over his head with a groan.

And for a minute you imagine you can see,

Well, you don’t know how to describe what the fuck you’re seeing, because you might be honest to god fucking hallucinating, now.

It’s like a fire made of broken glass, fractal patterns, burning bright in the middle of his chest, and you can fucking  _see_ it.

You blink and it doesn’t go away.

You are so.

It’s pink, first, and past that, orange and red. The little flame shines like a mirror for you, crumbling around what can only be described as a cavity in the center, a dark spot that oozes black ichor, and it speaks to a part of you that you don’t recognize, or maybe you do, and it’s panic, fear, and a sudden wave of surprise that he can even fucking stand, let alone walk around with that

that  _thing_ in the place where his -

What?

You blink and it’s there. You blink and it’s gone.

You reach out without thinking, your only goal to touch, to feel, to wedge your hand deep inside his chest. Touch that dark spot, see if it’s real, chip it away or, you think hysterically, seal it up like you’re caulking a bathroom floor.

You can’t help yourself, like you’re stuck in a daze, and oh, Dirk, how it calls out to you, the thrum of your heart, or his heart, pounding in your ears, static at the edge of your fingers.

Bro does not appreciate it in the slightest. He grabs you by the wrist before you can even graze the fabric of his shirt and  _twists_. Hard.

You snap back to reality, yelp, full body flinch as you come to your senses, vision too bright, his hand wrapped all the way around your arm til his fingers touch.

“What the fuck was that for?” you grouse, scowl at him, mind in a muddle, skin hot, face burning. You try to jerk away, fail. “I was just -”

But you don’t know what you were “just”. You don’t know what you were doing. What the fuck were you doing?

“I thought I saw...” You curl your hand up, flex it, watch your fingertips for phantom sparks. Think about. You don’t know. Pink things. The smell of pine needles. The way his hand burned on contact, all those months ago.

Bro holds you still, like he’s afraid to let go, and then he frowns. Leans in close. You try not to lean away. “When’s the last time you slept, kid?”

You give a weak shrug, staring hard at the center of his chest. You saw it, you know you did.

 _Splinters,_ you think hysterically. _Splinters all the way down._

He sighs, drops you like you’re a dead fucking fish. When he stands and steps away, your eyes follow him, hungry, desperate for another look, something, anything to prove you right.

You saw it.

You  _saw_ it.

Dave descends on you little more than a second later, eyes red and wide and oh, he’s not wearing his shades, when did that happen, when did he get here, what’s even going on right now. He shoves into your space and you flinch back, but he follows you, hand on your cheek, tipping your shades up to reveal the shitshow that is your dumb, tired-ass face.

“Hey,” he mumbles, and it betrays how sleepy he is, fuck, Bro must’ve woken him up, must’ve told him. You, you don’t know. Dave’s eyebrows bunch in the middle. Frustration, maybe? No, concern, it’s got to be. “Hey, come lay down, Dirk, okay? C’mon, the guys’ll help move Jane’s stuff tomorrow, you uh. You can just chill. You look like you need a nap. Or twenty.”

And maybe he’s right, maybe you’re exhausted, but you are absolutely, one hundred percent sure that you just saw Bro’s fucking soul.

You have no idea how to tell him.

So you don’t.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 100k!! Whoa???? How did that even happen????  
> God thank you guys so much for everything  
> This chapter is dedicated to peonies trust which I am sure I just lost! Love u babe!


	22. amor(bidity)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there are less intimate ways to tell people things. Dave doesn't know how this keeps happening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is almost entirely a filler chapter, and it's pretty much one hundred percent feelings! tune in next week for actual plot probably but this is apparently what I wanted to write I'm only a little sorry.

Something is bothering you.

Rose would say, “Dave, something is  _always_ bothering you.”

And you’d say, that’s patently untrue, you are a god among men, more chill than anyone has a right to be. You want patience? You’ve got it in spades, baby, you’re literally made of time, you potentially physically HAVE all the time in the world.

Actually, now that you think about it, maybe you just spent a good chunk of your life  _pretending_ that things didn’t bother you.

It’s a bit hard to tell.

Still, fuck Rose, you’re not a drama queen, and your feelings are valid, okay, and you do  _not_ over-exaggerate everything just for the sake of a good joke.

Most of the time.

And you know what? Maybe, just maybe (yeah okay this time it is a little dramatic), there are several things that happen to be bothering you at once, and maybe they’re more complicated than you like, or maybe you complicated them just by virtue of being yourself. You don’t know.

It’s just that they’re kinda related? And you could totally count them as one very big thing, all snowballed together, when it comes down to it.

  
“But _when_?”

“I told you, Dave,” Jade sighs, rolling her eyes. She doesn’t even look at you. She’s playing the Wii again and she’s really fucking good at it. You are so not jealous. It’s like, the shittiest game ever anyway. Of course John has it, though. Christ. “I don’t  _know_  when! It’s just a feeling I have. If I could tell you, I would! It’s really frustrating, you know. We don’t have dreamselves anymore, it’s not like when Skaia would show me things! I’m only part barkbeast -”

“Ugh don’t call it that -”

“- and I don’t even know how to use my powers again yet! Although I guess it’s cool that I have them at all, or at least that you do. Speaking of which...” She grins at you, cheeks dimpling, teeth a little too sharp to be completely human. She’s still so fucking cute. “Aren’t  _you_ supposed to be the time guy? Made of time?”

“That’s Aradia,” you say, taking the bait, and she laughs, bumps your shoulders together.

You missed this. Talking to Jade, the dumb jokes, this ease you got to have around her, at least for the few hours you spent together on LOFAF. You know. Before you bit it.

“You can’t give me like, an ETA or something?” you wheedle. Wiggle your eyebrows up over your shades. “C’mon, make something up. I won’t tell anybody.”

“Dave, ‘near’ omniscience doesn’t mean I actually even knew _everything_!” She throws her hands up, still manages to hit the boss character. Show off. “And I don’t even know how to access those powers right now. I’m not like you or Jane, I don’t have anything that needs to be - to be shrunk or made big or whatever! Have you tried asking Rose yet?”

As the fuck if. You’re not sure Rose would answer you, even if she could. You both know how much she’s struggled with all her - her stuff. Seers just got it rough like that, you guess.

You miss Terezi. She’d probably be able to

Hm, okay, she might not actually be willing to help. She was always kind of difficult if it made the situation funny, and it wasn’t life or death.

Well.

Sometimes death, you guess.

“Not yet,” you lie, when you realize Jade is staring at you.

The thing is, you don’t even know if you really want them to come back at all. The alpha versions of you, you mean. Shit’s super fucked up without anyone else making it complicated. Even calling them “alpha” feels weird. Makes you feel insignificant by comparison. Sure, you became a god, but you didn’t take down any clown presidents, didn’t really take a stand against anything at all, can’t even say you’d do the same thing if you were in his position. Do you really need another Dave? Fuck, ain’t two enough already?

But you know that Dirk is hearbroken (haha) even if he’ll never say it, and Rose is guilty for no reason other than not being what Roxy was expecting so you’re both kind of. Stuck, you guess.

“They’ll come back,” Jade says, and she pauses the game, turns to look at you straight on, grabs your hands in hers. Her eyes are bright green, pupils ringed with gold, and you try to remember if they’ve always been like that. “It’ll be okay, Dave.” She bites her lip. “Actually, I don’t know if okay is the right word? A lot of it seems to depend on...”

Her eyes go unfocused and you feel deeply uncomfortable like this, with her staring right through you, seeing something you can’t or. Or. You don’t know. “Jade...?”

She snaps out of it, blinks rapidly. “Sorry! Sorry, I really thought I had something there.”

“You are super freaky, Harley,” you sigh, flop back against the opposite side of the couch, pull your feet up off the floor.

She shrugs, chews on her bottom lip. “Have you talked to Dirk or Roxy about it yet?”

You freeze, try not to kick her as you unfold a little, uncomfortable with your knees all bunched up. It’s like a curse, you keep fucking growing, you’re in hell. Bro’s a bastard for a lot of reasons but this might be the worst of it. “Uh,” you say. No, you haven’t.

“Daaaaaaave,” she groans, shakes your knees. “You and Davesprite were supposed to tell him  _before_ the trip!! Now it’ll be all weird!”

“Well it’s not like you’re giving me a lot to work with,” you protest, inch closer so that your socked feet are almost in her lap. It’s cooler today, and you almost feel like a human again. Washington weather is a mystery to you, but you’ll take an almost twenty degree temperature drop if it means you’re not sweating your balls off, fuck. “You literally wouldn’t even tell me WHEN, and you know what Dirk’s first goddamn question is going to be? When. Followed by ‘What the fuck’, and then ‘Dave I can’t believe you lied to me by omission for like three months don’t you feel horrible and maybe a little like you’re dying inside because you can’t keep a secret?’ Don’t know if you noticed, Harley, but the guy doesn’t exactly like surprises.”

“It runs in the family,” she mutters, and you pretend not to hear because A, rude and B, hurtful, if true.

“Anyway,” you say, louder, “it’s not really - I don’t have to tell Roxy, right? Rose can do it.”

You can’t really handle it if she like. Cries or something. You’re not a crier. You definitely have never cried from anything but laughter or onions, not in your life. But it makes you uncomfortable, seeing other people do it. Anxiety, guilt, a compound of emotions you don’t really want to unpack.

Her face is all John then, and you don’t know how you never noticed before, the unimpressed line of the mouth, eyebrow raised. “You just don’t want to get in trouble of she cries, huh?”

Shit, she’s on to you.

“Uh,” you say, again. C’mon, Strider, it’s just Jade. You know how to talk to her. You’re friends, come on. You try not to be bothered that the voice in your head sounds a little too much like Bro sometimes.

“Listen, Harley,” you try, and yes, there it is, Texan drawl, exaggerated, low and sweet, a crooked smile, “you ever make your own mom cry? I’m guessing no, because Jane is an absolute ball of hyper-skeptical fucking sunshine with a sprinkling of pixie dust. Gal’s so unflappable she makes Dirk twist into pretzel knots trying to make her smile. Fuck, Jane could make  _John_ cry, and the dude is practically a dry-eyed hysteric. And anyway, thanks to him, or not, I don’t actually know? I got two moms now, and I gotta spend the rest of my life trying not to make either of them cry. Cut me a break, huh? If either of them shed a single tear cuz of me, there is someone in this house who will literally kick my ass. I will get served. So fucking hard.”

“Like a dude on butler island,” she snickers, and then throws her arms around your middle when you grin. “I missed you, Dave.”

Your chest floods with a warmth that you can’t explain, and you pat her hair gently. Try not to think about how much softer it is than troll hair. “Missed you too, Jade,” you mumble, but you mean it. You worry sometimes, that three years apart has fucked up your friendships irreparably. Maybe it has. You’re kinda hoping it hasn’t. You’re pretty sure it hasn’t.

“They do need to know,” she says, voice muffled into your side. “ _You_ have to tell Dirk, if no one else.”

You know that. “Do I?”

“Yes,” she says, and it’s this knowing amusement that makes you huff.

“Can’t Dave do it instead?”

She lifts up her head, digs the point of her chin into your sternum, makes you think, unpleasantly, about being gutted with a sword. “Mmmno,” she settles on, reaches out like she’s going to -

You flinch before you can stop it, grab her wrist on automatic, and Jade looks shocked, first, then embarrassed, drops her face so you can’t see it, but can feel her cheeks warm against your shirt.

“Sorry!” she practically shouts. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking, that was super uncool of me! It’s just that I used to - well not in my timeline I guess, but um.”

Oh. Right. The Dave thing. He probably let her touch the shades, huh? That sounds really uh. Intimate. And stuff.

“It’s okay,” you settle on, feel lame. You let her go, squash down the guilt that you might have hurt her. You would never hurt Jade. “Sorry,” you add, because you guess it technically is kinda cross-existence your fault, a little.

“It’s okay,” she says, and when she does look at you again, she smiles. “I’m mostly just glad everyone is alive again.”

“Me too,” you whisper. It feels stilted, maybe a little forced, but you push your shades up anyway, into your hair where you know the nose piece will get tangled and you’ll regret it later.

It’s kinda worth it when she beams. This time when she reaches forward, she flicks you on the nose. “You still have to tell him. He’s your brother! He won’t be mad!”

“How did you tell Jake?” you ask, though honestly, you’ve met Jake, you can’t imagine it was  _that_ bad.

“Um,” she says, winces. “He cried.”

You give her a flat stare. “Harley.”

“Because he was happy!” she tries, pillows her chin on her hands so she’s not killing you. Probably poor word choice. “I think? I don’t know! His grandma died when he was little, it was probably really traumatizing! I’ve tried to convince John to tell Jane about her Poppop, but he won’t because he says it’s a weird thing to say! And I don’t wanna do it because I -” She puffs out her cheeks.

You try not to feel smug. “Because you what, Jade?” you drawl, poke her sides. “What don’t you want to happen, Jade?”

“Shut up!” she laughs, shoving at your hands. “You’re the one who said it’s like, illegal to upset her!”

“I guess that’s true,” you relent. “If she’s anything like John, she might not believe you anyway.” You drum a hand on her arm as you lay there, try to think of a way to tell Dirk.

Or Roxy? You guess? Maybe both of them together?

No, Dirk wouldn’t like that. Dude  _really_ doesn’t do surprises, especially for someone who says super fucked up shit like _“no obviously I’ve never had milk before”_ and _“I don’t know, I always kinda thought public schools sounded neat, in theory.”_

You don’t want it to turn into an argument. You’ve never actually argued before, but you have a feeling this is something that’d do it. You bet if Dave told him it’d be fine. Their relationship is.

You don’t know.

It’s not complicated, not really. You’re both Dave, he likes you plenty, you’re sure. but Dave is still doing that thing where he thinks he’s not the real Dave, nudges you towards each other, takes a (metaphorical) step back. You guess maybe you’re partially to blame for that.

You haven’t been especially good at sharing. You should probably talk to him about it. He does owe you, after all.

(And maybe you owe him, too.)

  
  
You find him in Jane’s room, all alone, back hunched away from the door, surrounded by mechanical detritus like he owns the place. You’re pretty sure he’s only been up here half an hour.

“Hey, can I talk to you about something?” you ask, and you shouldn’t, because Dirk often gives you this look that makes it clear he thinks it’s ridiculous you’d even ask in the first place. That you didn’t just sit down right there and start the conversation mid-rant.

And okay, okay, you’ve definitely done that before, and you’re definitely guilty as charged, but for him to pick up  _that_ keenly on your bad habits? The same way you pick up on his? So uncomfortably sentimental, the both of you. Someone has to put a stop to this.

But you promised you weren’t gonna be That Dave today, the Dave who says he has important shit to say and then talks about something else.

You are fucking doing this, you are about to Make. It. Happen.

“It’s about time travel,” you say, step carefully over a discarded screwdriver and a pile of nails, hover uselessly off to the side. Dirk doesn’t like it when people stand over him, and you don’t want to crowd him if he’s not in the headspace for it right now.

There’s not a lot of places to escape to, in the Crockbert house, not with nine kids, five (debatable, really) guardians, and someone essentially occupying every possible room at any given time. He crashed hard that first night, when you wrestled him to bed, still reeking of weed, but it’s still been more difficult than either of you would like. (You think about Bro, kneeling by your head, the way he shook you awake carefully, how soft his voice had been, trying not to wake the others. You wonder if he’ll ever let you see him high like that again. You know. For science.)

But as much as Dirk has caved, let you curl your hand in his shirt, let you drag a leg over his to keep him still for the past three days, you know he’s not fucking happy about it. And he’s well within his rights, you think. Sharing John’s space with four other guys is kind a shitty, and he can hardly sleep in Jane’s (slightly bigger, Jade doesn’t know how but she can just tell) room. The girls are definitely having more fun than you, you think, because Jake snores and John is a lipsmacker and you and Dave are both kickers and clingers, which you know Dirk doesn’t love.

He’s finally managed refuge in Jane’s room, at least for the time being, and you know he needs a minute sometimes, like Bro’s propensity for unoccupied space, but he doesn’t look too displeased to find you here. He’s cradling the exo for a small metal rabbit, and you do not even want to know where he got it or if it is any of the multidimensional rabbits that plague your lives.

“His name is Lil Sebastian,” Dirk tells you anyway, and he goes back to working on the little guy like you didn’t just say something super ominous. “C’mon down here, bro, and you can talk about whatever the fuck you like. Can’t pretend I’ll understand it, though. Time’s one of the few things outside my expertise.” He glances up, and at this angle you can see the soft look in his eyes when he smiles at you. “Don’t know if you noticed.”

“I may have caught on to some of the clues,” you admit, practically throw yourself into his space. It’s not as weird as it used to be, and he doesn’t even complain when you put your hand on his leg absently to steady yourself, or when you pretty much go one hunny percent slack against his right. Guess he doesn’t care if he can still do his work - he’s a lefty, just like you. “What are you doing?”

He looks amused, and okay, so you’re easily distracted, you’ll get around to it eventually, and you both know it, so he humors you. “Trying to get him to work properly again. Or at least, work long enough that I can check for flaws in his programming. Jane said he was hiding in John’s bed when they arrived.” The smile that curls on his face is just a little bit rude. “They had to buy a new mattress.”

“Haha,” you say, but honestly it is just fucking like Dirk (any Dirk, you’re not picky) to program something like that. You note that the bunny looks a little worse for the wear, half an ear missing and chasis dented. “So what’s wrong with him?”

Dirk’s mouth twists down, and his turn of the screwdriver seems just a little more aggressive. You practically force yourself to relax, but if he notices, he doesn’t say anything. “Nothing, hypothetically. Last time we saw him was on Derse, and the game must have reset him here with Jane. But he looks like hell, and John’s father has requested that perhaps I tone down his survival instincts, ‘just a smidge’.”

Awww, okay, he’s just upset about that. Dirk’s kind of an overachiever, no surprise there. You wouldn’t put it past him to design some kind of murder-based bunny bot. You try to be chill about it. “Why does he even have survival instincts in the first place?”

Dirk looks at you and you think, for a moment, maybe he’s a little embarrassed. He’s not good at hiding things, not from you. He’s practically an open fucking book, next to Bro. So you can see it, when the discomfort shifts from slight shame to something more like insecurity. “To keep Jane safe.”

That is literally the sweetest thing your stupid alt-ecto-bro has ever said to your face, and you cannot quite fight the grin making its way across your face. “That is literally the cutest shit you could have possibly said to me,” you say, in part to watch the way his ears turn just the slightest shade of pink. In part because it honestly really fucking is. Dirk isn’t really much for talking about his feelings, not even after all this time, and he’ll very rarely admit it, but you know he loves the absolute shit out of his friends.

“Don’t be a dick,” he mutters, but he doesn’t shove you off. “Anyway, Batterbitch is gone now, but as far as I’m concerned, Jane’s still the heiress, and she’s probably still got a huge fucking target painted on her back. There’s a chance that her enemies could still be out there, plotting or some shit.”

Okay, same old paranoid Dirk, you guess. You bonk your head against his shoulder. “Think she can protect herself pretty fucking well, dude. Did you see that giant ass pitchfork she keeps in the corner of her room? Kinda weird she doesn’t put it in her sylladex, but who am I to judge? Have you seen my sword pile? Got a hundred of the motherfuckers all jammed in there, it’s like looking for hay in a needle stack.”

He smiles. “You only use one strife deck, Dave. But you’re probably right. And I know that? But Seb was...” He runs a thumb over the little blue hat that’s been scratched away at the center. “He was a gift. And it was all I could do, back then.” Pauses, thinks. “Or will do. Or will never do in this timeline, I suppose.”

“You’re here now, Dirk,” you say gently. “That’s what counts.” And it’s important, you think, for him to stop doing that. Thinking about a timeline that was, or won’t be, anymore. It’s a road you’re intimate with. Fuck, it was your first kiss. Probably would have taken you to prom, if you were still in public school. Or the world hadn’t ended when you were thirteen.

You wonder if you can still have a prom now. Maybe convince Bro to buy you a tuxedo handmade by a human person. If it’s funny enough, he’ll probably go for it.

Dirk doesn’t answer, turns another screw to finally open the core panel.

Wait for it...

Wait for it......

“Yes,” he murmurs thoughtfully, and you see the corner of his mouth curl up.

One point for Dave, hell yeah.

And then you immediately deflate because Christ on a fucking cracker, it’s another goddamn bunny.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” you say, and he stutters a breath out his nose; Bro’s version of a laugh.

“Your alternate universe self had an entire museum dedicated to the movie Con Air. It’s kind of a long story, but I never really understood it, myself.”

You understand perfectly fucking well  _why_  and it’s the most embarrassing thing you have heard thus far. “I really don’t know if I can deal with the end of that story,” you say instead, watch him handle the beat-up rabbit with such delicacy and care he may as well be cradling glass.

“It ends with me stealing it through somewhat nefarious means, with Roxy’s assistance. I don’t know if he ever missed it.” He smiles down at the bunny, pulls a zipper that you know damn well did not exist on the rabbit you gave John.

Lil Sebastian’s insides light up green and you have a feeling that’s definitely uranium you’re looking at, right there.

“Uh,” you say, though you already have your doubts. “Is that safe to touch with your hands?”

He shrugs as he digs his fingers in. “’M a god now, aren’t I? What’s a little radiation poisoning between friends?”

“Okay,” you say slowly, watch the way it glows, turns his skin and everything around it a sickening color, “but when you’re done with your build-a-bear workshop here? We are going downstairs and Jane is checking both of us for super cancer.”

That pulls a real laugh out of him. “Alright. Though I should warn you this isn’t going to be the last time.” He leans over you to put the solid little chunk on his tool roll. You didn’t even realize he brought it with him. It’s covered in oil and some other shit you don’t recognize, and you realize it’s just a ratty old shirt.

Huh.

Maybe you should buy him like. An actual roll for his birthday? Or something? Actually when is his birthday? Do you have the same birthday? You don’t know. Bro never told you.

“Dude, there are absolutely safer forms of energy than this.”

“Mm, none available to me at the time of creation.” He clucks his tongue. “I suppose I could take him back to Houston, see if I’ve got anything on hand now. Although in fairness to me, I do believe the technology I’m using hasn’t officially been developed yet.”

“Hey, not everyone creates a cognizant AI from their own brain at the tender age of thirteen, but there’s no need to  _brag_ about it, bro.” You wonder if he knows how simultaneously insanely smart and terrifying that makes him.

He hums again, and his eyebrows knit. You wonder, in a moment of panic, if you’ve upset him. “If I’m being honest with you, Dave, I -” He coughs a little, clears his throat. He’s upset, but not with you. “I was hoping that some of Hal’s data might still be present in Lil Seb’s hard drive. I won’t know until I run it through an actual computer but I... I’m hesitant to attempt it, all the same.”

You know it’s been bothering him. He hasn’t really talked about it with anyone else, as far as you know. You never really interacted with anything other than Arquiusprite, and at that point you were still a little... well. Freaked. You guess.

“I don’t really know enough to help,” you say, shrug a little, settle back in when it’s clear he doesn’t have to move for anything else.

He jostles your shoulder against his gently. “You’re keeping me company, that’s plenty help enough. The others seem to think that if I don’t grab at least ten minutes a day for myself, I’ll burst into flames.”

Yeah, you kinda thought that too. You remember how he used to wrap himself up in your blankets with his head under the pillow, your big noise-canceling headphones jammed over his ears. Those first couple weeks were super rough for both of you.

You don’t mention it, though, because honestly? You’ve been up in each other’s business 24/7 and he hasn’t complained once. Maybe you’re just special. (You kinda hope you’re just special.)

“Don’t you, though?” you ask, despite yourself. “Need quiet time.”

“Quiet doesn’t have to mean alone, Dave,” he says on an exhale, looks a little wry. “But I suppose I can see where they’re coming from.”

“I don’t think they’re doing it to be mean,” you say anyway, pull out your phone. “No offense, bro, but your friends love you.”

You don’t really have anyone to text right now, since they’re all either downstairs or in John’s room or just. You don’t know. Around. DS and Jade were helping Nanna bake last you checked. A “past-time” or something? You won’t admit to being jealous, neither, because Dave is you (sort of) and he and Jade are still kinda feeling out this whole cross-timeline post-relationship friend thing.

God your lives are so stupid.

“You’re also the one who pretty much volunteered to sit up here and fix the rabbit in the first place,” you add, though not to be cruel.

He grunts, and you can tell that he doesn’t really like that you’re probably right. It’s okay, though, you know he’s not actually mad at you. You hope.

“I can message Rose or Jane or something if you want,” you offer, bend your elbow to knock him lightly in the guts. You don’t really want to overextend your welcome, and if he’d rather chill with Roxy or Jake or whatever, you don’t want to get in the way.

“No,” he sighs softly, and you know his shades are more advanced than yours, but you can actually hear the whir they make when he pulls Lil Sebastian close, gets really up in the wiring and shit. You don’t know what you’re talking about, you really don’t. “You don’t have to worry about that, you know.”

“What.” You play along, but you feel your stomach clench, try not to tense too much. What did you do? 

He pauses, then, and he doesn’t quite look at you straight on, but you can see around his shades, how he’s regarding you. There is no way he does not realize you’re full of shit. “You don’t have to try’n quantify how much I care about you by measuring my interest in spending time with people other than you.” Shit. “You know I like you, Dave. And frankly you know that well enough that I shouldn’t have to tell you again. Your company is more than enough for me. Alright?”

And fuck, the dude can be a bit heavy with the words, his kindness doesn’t always cushion the sting, but he doesn’t aim to hurt. And he admitted he likes you, which is. Heh.

“Okay,” you say, and you bump hard against him. You’re kind of a huge pain in the neck. “But tell me again anyways.”

He presses his tongue into his cheek and goes back to business, bunny near the face, tiny soldering gun held like a pen and both hands despite your weight.

You realize, watching his hands work, careful, beyond delicate, that you still haven’t said shit and fuck, you did it again. Classic Dave shit right here.

“So,” you say, and talk right over the breathy laugh he makes, “about time travel.”

“Yes, Dave?” And he’s grinning now, trying not to.

Except.

Okay, so it’s not actually about time travel. That just kind of came out, as if you really need an excuse to talk to the guy, which you definitely don’t, except when you’re justifying it to yourself in your head. So it’s not about time travel, except in the ways that it sort of is? Kinda everything about you and your godtierhood encompasses the subject, it’s a bit of a nightmare, really. There’s no such thing as a successful session without a time player, etc etc.

The problem being with that, of course, that you’re no longer in a session. And you still have time travel powers, which you don’t really know if you have total control of, or even want, or what that will mean for the rest of.

Uh.

Huh.

Forever? Maybe?

“Do you think we’ll die one day?” Fuck you didn’t mean to say that.

He actually stops for a moment, looks at you. Clears his throat. Starts working again. “Is this a ‘the sun will implode one day and destroy the universe as we know it’ question, or a specific to us hypothetical?”

“The second one,” you say, flop backwards onto the floor, scroll through your chum roll again, just for something to do. Rose is online, at least. Even if she’s not looking now, she will later. You’re really bad at getting to the point.

\-- turntechGodhead [TG]began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] \--

TG: rose do you think when all of our family and shit die and theres only eight of us left well still be friends  
TG: or do you think well get sick of each other  
TG: fly out into space or something  
TG: could literally roll into the sun for sport i guess  
TG: maybe actually go find the trolls  
TG: if were still godtier do you think they are too

“You want me to tell you whether I think being godtier prevents us from aging or death?”

“Well,” you say. Bite your cheek. “I guess that’s a lot to ask. No? Cuz I already know we can age, since obviously I’m not thirteen anymore, and neither is anyone else.” You prop yourself up on your elbow. “It’s not really wanted I wanted to talk about, tbh. It just kind of came out.”

“Dave,” Dirk says, and you can hear his smile, “your head is a mess.”

“Don’t feed my own bullshit back to me,” you huff, but don’t shove him, because he’s working and you don’t have a death wish. “I think. I think maybe it’s something I could stop? If I wanted? Does that make sense?”

“Death?” he asks patiently. “Or aging?”

You think about that a minute. It’s something you and Aradia discussed, briefly. Time buddies and all, but she definitely had better control over the god aspect of the whole thing than you ever did. You were limited by your fear of death, you think, where her own had set her free. It’s something you’ve never gotten completely over.

“Both,” you say. “What’s the point of control over time if I can’t influence the mortal coil. Not that I would ever like. Try it or anything. That’s pretty fucked up. Like I said, I didn’t really want to talk about it. Or don’t now. It’s more about time travel specifically as it relates to you. Your session, really.”

You know this is a sensitive subject specifically because it’s one both of you stalwartly avoid. His bro, Roxy’s mom. The whole mystery of the missing guardians in general. You tried telling Jade, it’s just. Not something either of you talk about.

His teeth click together so hard you can hear it, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “Okay,” he says, but you know he doesn’t want to.

“So I was thinking,” you say, don’t know why you hesitate. You promised you would do this, but. Ugh. It’s so hard to bring up. You’re so much better at deflecting. “We basically interrupted your session, right? Like. Crashed it like a bachelorette party, full stop, inserted our planets into your incipisphere without even askin’. Or I guess you guys knew we’d be there, right? Eventually.”

“Yes. Calliope told us - yes.”

Fuck you forgot about their little alien bud. You wonder - well it’s probably just as well you don’t think about that, the same way you try not to miss Terezi or Karkat or, or Kanaya. Fuck, Rose won’t even talk about her.

“But John’s the one who opened the door, right?” you say, stare at Jane’s ceiling. Girl needs some glow in the dark stars up in here. “Even though it wasn’t  _our_ door, he’s the one who opened it, so I was just thinking, like, if I went back, if one of you opened the door instead -”

“No,” Dirk says immediately, and he’s not working anymore, has twisted at an impossible angle to look at you.

Well, you weren’t expecting that. I mean, you weren’t really supposed to offer to go back in time and wreck shop on your game, either, but sometimes things just come down the Strider pipeline and you’re helpless to stop them. “But -”

“You cannot create a doomed timeline,” he says, and there is something pained in his voice. His mouth turns down at the corners, but you wish you could see his eyes. You watch his adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “Dave this is - this is it. For better or worse. We talked about that.”

“I know,” you mumble, try not to sound miserable about it. You don’t want to be the god of a world you watched burn down once already. “I just. I dunno. I just thought if I gave you the choice...”

His hand touches the top of your head in this tentative way, even after all these months, and you don’t complain when his callused fingertips snag lightly at your hair. “I wouldn’t give you up,” he says, and yes, he’s definitely turning red now, and yes, this is definitely awkward, and yes, your face is slowly splitting in half because _Christ_ , Dirk. This dude is so fucking bad at feelings it’s hilarious. It’s embarrassing how hilarious and charming this is.

“Thanks, Rick Astley,” you drawl, grab his hand and tug in askance. “But you don’t need to quantify how much you love me through memes.”

“Don’t feed my own bullshit back to me,” he says dryly, lets you pull him down. He gives you a shitty little smile. You kind of love it. His shades press into the floor so he takes them off, and you push yours up, roll so you’re on your side and then you’re both just kinda. Lying on the floor in Jane’s room.

Totally not weird at all. Maybe she’s cool with it. You don’t know what Dirk does and doesn’t tell her.

Could be worse places, you guess, to lie on the floor with a dude.

“I have something to tell you,” you say, and you don’t want it to be weird. Above anything else, you really don’t want this to be the thing that fucks it all up.

Dirk is Bro in as many ways as he’s not, and you get the distinct impression that the pause he gives is entirely for your benefit. “This isn’t going to be one of those ‘I should have told you sooner’ situations, is it?”

Well, shit. “Uh.” You tuck your arm under your head before it goes numb against your side. “Maybe a little. I didn’t like, give you herpes or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Dave,” he says, and the patience in his voice is two parts amusement, about twenty parts anything else. “I’d be more worried if you had found a way to obtain them yourself, in the first place.”

“Hey, you don’t know. I could have like. Space herpes. From trolls, or something.” He stares at you, eyebrows up. You cough. “I don’t know why I said that.” You’re already kicking yourself mentally. You’re a mess. God. Why. Help. “Sometimes I just say shit, I know you know that,” you near-snap when he opens his mouth, and you’re embarrassed that he doesn’t look more upset with you.

“Yeah, I know,” he murmurs, and his eyes crinkle at the corners, smile lopsided. It’s been a long summer, and you can count freckles you’ll never have as they march across his nose. It almost offsets the slight intimidation factor. Although he’s not so scary now, anyway, once you’ve seen him with his hair stuck to his face, drooling on a borrowed pink pillowcase.

You press your fingers to the floor so they pop one by one. Remind yourself that this is the same dude you told you have a repetitive compulsion involving his death, and who not only accepted that but offered to indulge in it with you. You think maybe both of you are a little fucked up that way.

“Okay so like,” you start, and there’s nowhere to look, really, except his face. Dirk’s stare is intense, unwavering, even when he blinks, and you think he looks better now, than he did, less tired. Probably still needs more sleep. How do you convince him to nap? Jade naps all the time. Napping as a group activity sounds, frankly, fucking awesome.

“So like,” he coaxes, when you don’t continue.

Goddammit. “So Jade used to see shit in Skaia, right? That’s Prospit privilege at its finest, right there. Goddamn disgusting misuse of game mechanics, really.”

Dirk hums. “Jane never put too much thought into her dreams. It was like pulling teeth, trying to get her to tell me anything.” He rolls his eyes. “Skeptics.”

“To be fair, I was apparently awake the whole time, I just never noticed,” you say, shrug. “No revolution for me.”

“You were probably safer that way,” he says, and you don’t flinch when he moves his hand over you, plucks your shades out of your hair without them getting tangled. He folds the ears and places them carefully next to his own, looks back at you.

“Guess so,” you mumble. You still feel kind of lame. You spent years just. Having crappy Cal-fueled nightmares while he actually DID stuff. “So Jade can’t do that anymore, right? No more connection to the game except. Uh. Okay so her dog was this fucking. It was crazy, right? You know, the whole Jack thing, bad dog, worst friend. Anyway it was like. Omniscient, and omnipotent also? I guess? Don’t know how Jade never seemed to mention that to any of us. So sometimes she. Well I guess we never really thought much about it. Jade’s always known things nobody else ever could. And we don’t have proof, it’s just a feeling, but you still deserve to know, it’s like. Kind of a big deal, and I definitely should have said something, I don’t know why I didn’t, I’m sorry, fuck -”

Dirk’s hand is warm on your arm, and you stop, drop your eyes. Take a deep breath.

“Jade thinks your guardians are going to come back. And before you ask, she won’t tell me when. She can’t. And  _I_ can’t. And I know it sounds stupid, and I want to be able to tell you more. But I can’t.” You're afraid to look at him. Afraid of what you'll find there.

Dirk is perfectly silent, perfectly still. When you peek up at him, his mouth is a straight line, but his eyes, normally covered, scrunch up, pupils slightly dilated. "You don't know when," he repeats, and it's mechanical, sends your brain into a panicked flurry. This is it, the reaction you dreaded most. He's angry at you, you know it.

"I, I," you stutter. "I don't know."

"She couldn't tell you anything else? Not where? How? Anything?" he presses, and you fight the urge to curl in.

"No, I -" And it sounds meek. A little pathetic. "No, I'm sorry, I don't know. Sorry."

You know he's not Bro, you know, but that silence, the way he can go so completely motionless. It terrifies you. And then he sighs, tilts his head to look at something over your shoulder. His hand on your arm flexes a little, fingers tapping across the skin briefly. He's trying to calm himself down. "No," he says softly. "No, I'm. I'm sorry, Dave. I shouldn't have - it's not your fault." He flicks his eyes back to look at you and he doesn't look angry, or happy, or anything positive. He just looks anxious. "They're really..?"

"Yes," you say, and you don't know why you reach out, grab him by the back of the neck. Drag him until your heads press together. It's reminiscent of the night Bro not-died, and you feel weirdly vulnerable. Trying to steady him. It's like a fucked up joke. "Yeah, man. They're gonna come back. You're gonna meet your bro."

"Oh," he says, and his voice sounds a little froggy. He clears his throat in vain. "That's. That's cool. I mean. I had sort of given up? I think, so I." He lets out a shuddering breath, and yeah, this is pretty much the most intimate way you could've chosen to do this. Maybe shouldn't have. Dirk's hands curl into your t-shirt. "I wasn't really expecting..."

"It's okay to cry, dude," you whisper, run your thumb over the knobs of his spine, thank god and especially Jane that you even get this chance.

"Fuck you," he coughs, gives a wet laugh.

You muffle a snicker, pull back enough to tap your heads together. You really, really don't want another Dave, but honestly? You wouldn't be yourself if you weren't willing to make a couple sacrifices for the people you love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all have no idea how thankful I am for the feedback last chapter, and I promise it will be okay!! Thank you so so much always <3


	23. interlude: lanthanide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bro tries, and he sucks at it, and then he tries again, but a little bit harder this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wowowowowowowow!! Kids, we! have! fanart!!!!!!!!!!  
> the first one is from fang, fondly known as "F" in the comments. [they drew bro's messed up soul and it's BEAUTIFUL!!!!](http://simmonsized.tumblr.com/post/182007497851/) i love! it! so! much!  
> the second is a scene from chapter ten with [davesprite and bro](http://alexharrier.tumblr.com/post/182120198942/ive-fallen-in-love-with-deserts-post-sburb), by Alexharrier, whose art is stunning and i am just. blown away by the talent here??? wow!!! wowowow thank you!!!  
> thank you BOTH again sososososo much!!!!!!  
> also sorry for the long week, i have been so so busy and also sorry this is! a bro chapter and getting that guy to talk is like pulling teeth which, ironically, i also had happen this week  
> warnings mostly for bro being kind of a jerk, and pretty much like. nothing else. some fake guardian headcanons to suit my needs, mild chapter in comparison to! others!

_Days in the past (but not many)..._

 

You finally let Jane Egbert hug you when the kitchen door swings closed behind your kids, and it's all too quiet all too fast.

"Oh, Mr. Strider," she sighs softly, and you lean over her, practically folded in half as she gets you around the middle. Her hair is wiry against your cheek, the fabric of her shirt warm where you press your nose. She smells like cookies. "What have you gone and done this time?"

"Nothing," you grunt on reflex. Undeserved anger, curling in your stomach, confused indignation. Stop. You need to stop. You curl your fingers gently into the edge of her worn apron, drum a beat on her shoulder where your free hand wants desperately to let go. Ugh. Stop. Sigh, squeeze your eyes shut. They burn, but just for a moment. "I don't know. Messed up, same as usual. I had this, this notion that I could... Well. It doesn't matter now." You don't try to justify yourself to her, couldn't, even if you wanted to. You never had a mom. But Jane is the closest thing, you think, that you ever came to something resembling one (or she tried to be, anyway, before you turned your back on her, on everyone, before you decided you were better _fasterstrongerbolder_  on your own). "I was - cruel. Hurt someone's feelings, same as I always do. Don't know what I was thinking."

"I shall say, I rather think you weren't," Nanna Egbert says, and she lets you go, straightens your shirt with her too-blue hands, gives you another lookover. "Jumping Jehoshaphat, Strider, you look like hell's hangover."

"I know," you mumble, and you get the distinct feeling you are being judged and appraised, like a prize cow at the county fair. You try to ignore the other "Dad" in the room, who is looking both amused and a little uncomfortable. Fuck that guy, he's - well okay maybe he's identical to Egbert, maybe a little older. You don't fucking know, you've been dead, who are you to judge a dude's age? You don't like that he's staring at you, or that this is the second time you've met and you still can't remember his name.

Egbert can't like what she finds, frowns at you in a way that makes you want to. To hide? Maybe? Not that you'd ever admit that, of course, because that'd be admitting defeat, and you can't possibly have that. You're no shrinking violet, but she gets to the heart of you like no one but Roxy ever has, and you'd resent her for it if you hadn't been the one who fucked it all up in the first place.

 _"I'm sorry,"_ sits on the tip of your tongue and you battle it a second too long, don't quite get there. Your best defense is silence, and it shrouds you like a veil, always has.

Hass is still sitting at the kitchen table, arms crossed like a spoiled brat. He tried to ambush you upon entry, got you in a headlock before you could step away. Wily old fucker, you'll give him that. You missed that. Fuck, you missed him, too, in spite of everything.

"Time heals all wounds, Dirk," Jane - Nanna, now, you remind yourself, says, like she can really read your mind. She pats your hand again, and you don't jerk away. Fuck, they should give you a medal for this shit. "But I think perhaps some cuts are deeper than others, eh? Why don't you sit a spell, you look like you could use a drink."

"Probably just a drink of water, ma'am," you sigh, and you hate yourself, a little, for the way you fight a smile.

A look you can't discern flickers across her face, but you don't really care to unpack that right now, stuck somewhere between hungover and still more drunk than you like to be. "Of course, dear," she murmurs, and she wheels over to the counters to fetch you a glass.

"Come now, Jane," Hass says, and he doesn't sound entirely mad, maybe just a little tense. Which is fine, you have that effect on people, you're well aware of it. Jacob Harley was never an exception to that rule. "He's a grown man, he doesn't need you to baby him."

And he's definitely right, and you definitely don't, but that don't mean you don't miss it.

You can see the exact moment where Egbert realizes she can't reach the glassware, and there's something less like amusement and more like pity that stirs in your gut.  
"Oh, Nanna, let me -" the Crockdad starts, but you wave him off.

"I got it," you say as you walk over, reach for the cupboard where she's always kept them, and hand it down to her.

"Oh." She blinks up at you and then beams. "Thank you, Dirk. Silly old me, I wasn't even thinking, was I?" And fuck, she's gotten so old, hasn't she. When did she get so old? Somewhere in your unkindness you lost track of them. You lost them entirely.

She does get you that glass of water, and you let her, keep your eyes focused on the table so you don't have to deal with the way Hass and Little Jane's dad both stare at you. It's like bugs crawling across your skin, a tickle down your spine. It sends your jaw muscles jumping, pulls at the corner of your mouth. You cross your arms, pop your knuckles absently when they start to tighten, but you will not be the one who starts a fight, not today.

You hear the whine of Nanna's chair and are careful not to flinch when she pulls up beside you. "Oh, we can't possibly have a proper reunion like this! Where has Roxy and that son of mine gotten off to?"

"I think you should worry more about  _what_ they've gotten off to," you say, and you have to press your tongue into your teeth to keep from smiling when Harley guffaws, although Egbert is less amused, smacks you upside the head - or at least as high as she can reach.

" _Dietrich_!"

"Not actually my name, Egbert."

"Oh, you are such a bother," she huffs, and you know that, but you can see the twist of her mouth, how she tries to hide her smile. "You're lucky I can't catch you or I'd wash that filth from your mouth with soap!"

She wouldn't, you think. She's way too soft on you, Hass is right. God, it almost feels good, doesn't it? To be alive, to see them again.

Your glasses ping and you hate that the window opens on automatic. You should take them apart, fix the software. But they're not actually yours (not everything came back from the game whole, yourself included, haha) and you're not willing to risk whatever nightmare future tech may or may not be embedded in them.

It's just Dave, anyway, and the red text causes you pause like no one else ever has. Dave doesn't pester you.

TG: bro  
TG: s o fucking s

You stand fast, too fast, slide a hand along the wall to steady yourself, fleeting, hopefully fast enough that no one notices.

"Strider -" Harley starts. Fuck. Cover blown. There's something dangerously close to worry in your name.

You don't really have time to mull over that right now, so you ignore him and poke your head out the door. The living room looks like a Mexican fucking standoff, and you only need a moment to determine the source of the problem and it's one (1) Roxanne Lalonde and her Egbertian friend, one (1) gentleman baker.

Well. Okay. You guess.

You know Dave has been just fucking. Tearing himself apart over this for literal months, and while you were very little help with any of that, when it comes down to it, you can do this one thing.

You grab them by the necks. You don't know why. It's completely impractical, a little menacing. You didn't really think about it. Egbert's ears immediately turn pink, but Roxy digs her heels in, and it takes a muttered curse too rude for prying ears before she gets the hint. She's still going to kick the shit out of you for it later, you just know she will (and you're definitely not still miffed that she can lift you like a prima ballerina, no sir).

But they let you steer them after a second, softer, _"not right now,"_ and you're behind closed doors and out of prying range in no time.

Just as well for you. Having that many eyes on you at once is a nightmare.

"Dirk, what the fu-" Roxy starts, but she stops as soon as she sees Nanna, her eyes lighting up, a high-pitched, girlish squeal bursting out of her. "Ohhhhh, Jane!!"

You step away, sag into the far chair, where you can press your back to the wall, and no one will look directly at you. You're definitely still a little bit drunk. You're happy, anyway, for Roxy to get the attention, don't even quip when she starts grilling on Hass, ruffles his hair and calls him an old fart. You're tired. You're not in the mood. You'd prefer if, just this once, you didn't have to be the center of anyone's attention.

Shit rarely works out in your favor, however, and you can tell that you're about to be volunteered for something you don't want to do before Nanna Egbert has even turned to look at you.

  
You thought after Dave collected mini-you maybe you'd finally get some sleep. You've earned it, you reckon, between the long flight and the absolute circus that is wrangling a bunch of teenagers for half the day ( Roxy would argue that she did most of the work, and you'd argue that she at least got on that airplane by choice).

You settle into the blanket nest created for you, even take off your hat like a gentleman. You're going to catch some mad z's, the world isn't even fucking ready for how sick the z's you're about to catch are. Call the CDC, this sleep is about to get so ill it's liable to drop dead.

You are very fucking high, and very fucking exhausted.

You've been awake more days than you can count, it feels like, and quite honestly, "sick'n tired" doesn't even begin to describe all the ways in which you feel like shit. Could be worse. Fuck, little you was actually goddamn cracking, wasn't he? You haven't been  _that_ bad in - well you don't know, do you? How bad you may or may not have been. The pits in your memory are a conglomeration of your own faults and those of  
of Cal, you guess.

You stare at the ceiling and breathe in, breathe out, tap your foot to the tick tock of the clock on the wall, drum your fingers along the edge of the couch. You remember being (c'mon, dude, just call him Dirk) his age, sitting in this living room, thinking " _holy fuck I can't deal with this."_ All the expectations, the plans Hass and, and Egbert had for you. The reality of your situation and how your life would go, and you knew better than anyone, didn't you? You knew from the get-go, and you were okay with it. You had to be. You were on a predetermined path and you didn't want

"I hope you're not out here thinking too much." You hear the whir before you see her coming. "We all know how dangerous that is."

You keep your eyes trained on the overhead light, ignore the urge to itch at them, do not move your legs out of the way so she can sit. She doesn't ask you to. "Wouldn't be the most dangerous thing I've done in my life."

"I don't know if dying counts, Strider," she says cheerfully, and you do raise your head, then. Steel hair turned ghost-pale blue, skin no longer as warm as it once was, but you know her face as well as anything, even when she rolls her eyes at you, twenty years younger in a single moment. "Don't you give me that look, young man. I know how reckless you can be."

"Wasn't giving you any kind of look, ma'am," you say, although you can't be sure, drowsy with sleep loss and higher than you meant to get. Faces do all sorts of weird shit when you lose track of them. God help you if Dave ever caught you like this. He'd probably cry.

"That's part of the problem, son," she says, and you never got used to that, the pinch of her eyebrows, the slant of her mouth. Unearned pity, misplaced concern. You used to think she was disappointed in you. You wonder now if maybe you were just more fucked up than you originally thought. Haha. Well. No surprise there, you guess.

"It's  _part_ of my brand," you say blandly, fold your hands over your stomach. Stay still. Don't fidget, she won't like that, it shows weakness. You wish you could leave this conversation. You'd pay good money for an escape route right about now.

She sighs, pats your leg. "That boy get off to bed alright?"

You stifle a yawn, bob your head in a lazy nod. "Finally. Took long enough."

"Hum, and I'm sure you were no help."

A shrug. "I do what I can."

A soft hoo, a fragile smile. You can't count the wrinkles around her eyes, and your chest feels heavy and sad. " _'What you can'_  isn't what most people need, dear."

"I know that," you say. And you do. You've done an absolutely piss poor job of doing much at all since coming back to life. But fuck, what do you say to a kid who's lost everything? Or when that same kid, yet separate - and they're both yours, on top of it, as if that doesn't complicate the shit out of everything - became a god, a killer, a hero. You don't really have any right to be proud of that, Bro Strider. You really don't.

"You know," Jane says, loud enough to stir you from your thoughts, "being a sprite may make us privy to information of the known universe, at least in context relating to the Game, but it does not mean I know _everything_. I can't read minds, after all."

Your teeth clench so hard you can hear it in your ears. Stop. You take a deep breath, let out a shuddering sigh. Give in to the desire to rub your eyes. "I don't know what you want me to say."

She frowns, and there she is, that's your fighter. Its enough of an evil eye that you almost feel contrite. "Somehow I very much doubt that."

A sting in the back of your mind, laughter scraping across your brain. "Do you want me to say sorry again?"

Her hands tighten on the arms of her chair. "I don't recall you saying it a  _first_  time, Dietrich."

You snort, ground the heels of your hands into your eye. "Still not my name, Egbert."

She ignores you. "Roxy seems to think you feel as though you are beyond forgiveness. Do you truly think so litttle of yourself?"

 _Christ_ , she's relentless. You want to tell her to fuck off, but you can't. Shouldn't, anyway. The ridiculousness of this whole situation is not lost on you, and you laugh a little. "I don't need to worry about that. It's pretty clear exactly what kind of person I am, now."

"And what might that be?" she murmurs, but you can tell she doesn't want to hear the answer, is looking at you like - like you don't know.

You smile, wish for a cigarette. "A bad one."

She doesn't correct you, but her lips press together, and you know you've upset her again. Jane was always soft inside, even at her cruellest moments. She looks away, towards the fire place, where you know, through Dave, became her final resting place. "Despite what you may think, I was not perfect in my first life. Not everything I did was for the good of someone else, nor entirely myself. I daresay I spent a very good portion of that time being afraid. Of my mother, of myself and my potential."

You drop your hands, consider pulling the covers over your head. This is about ten times more honest and intimate than you generally like to be. "What are you trying to say?"

Jane's face is all pity, and she pats you on the leg again, gives a squeeze. "The world isn't black and white, dear. It's not a sin to seek forgiveness."

You hesitate, lick your lips. Indecision chokes you. "You don't think so?"

"Mm," Jane murmurs. "I've been on this planet long enough to see - to understand the meaning of true evil." She looks back at you thoughtfully, and there is kindness in her gaze that you do not feel you deserve. When she smiles, her teeth are still overly large, charmingly crooked. "And you're not evil, Dirk. Misguided, maybe. Cruel, perhaps." You wince. She moves closer to you, and you go completely, perfectly still. Keep your hands on your chest. Do not flinch when her fingers sweep the hair off your forehead. "But you are not evil."

You can't help it. You laugh. It's preposterous. Overworked. Evil versus... you don't know. Good, you guess. You're not even entirely sure you believe in any of that. You certainly don't remember any version of hell, anyway (green fire, barking dogs, sweat pooling at the base of your neck). It's not something you can really recall struggling with, so set on your preparations, making sure Dave would survive, so blinded by -  
Nothing good.

There really isn't anyone you can talk to about this, nor (and isn't that just _sad_ ) would you want to.

"I appreciate the vote of confidence," you manage, when it's been a hot minute and you realize you haven't said anything.

"I don't think you actually believe me," she sighs, turns her chair towards the kitchen. "But I think you might learn to, one day."

You should've gotten Dave a fancy fucking wheelchair. God knows you can afford it. Would he want something like that? Kinda seems like he's moving towards some kind of recovery, although you're not entirely sure. Lil Crocker didn't seem like she could do anything about it, anyway. You don't know. Probably good for his arms, at least. Maybe?  
"Where're you goin'?" you ask as an afterthought, tip your head so you can follow her path.

"I thought you might want to finish that glass of water before you head off to bed. If you're still trying to avoid a hangover."

There's a twinkle in her eyes you don't appreciate, and you grunt, don't say thanks.

_You are not evil._

You don't know about that. But you kinda hope she's right.

 

  
You spend the entire trip trying to stay out of Lalonde and her boytoy's hair, and everyone's hair in general. You smoke some weed to deal with nerves you didn't realize you had until you hit your last one (and you should have noticed, given the current population to space ratio of the house), and Hass finally gets his tussle when the kids go out to the lake nearby (you don't trust the Egbert kid to drive, not for the life of you, but at least his car is automatic). You end up breaking the picnic table out back in half with an overenthusiastic piledriver. You worry for a moment that you've killed the old man, until he starts laughing so hard he hiccups, which is all good until he wraps his legs around your ankles, drops you to the ground and gets you in another headlock, where he proceeds to noogie the ever-loving shit out of you while the others do nothing to stop him (and honestly, you do very little to stop it, too).

You have a beer vs root beer chugging contest with Roxy while Egbert times you on the third day, and on the fourth day they finally leave you alone long enough that you put the telescope back together with Dirk (he mutters under his breath the whole time, you don't think he even realizes he's doing it).

You're almost relieved Lalonde is too fucking busy to pin you down with touchy-feely shit, because while she won't pressure you, Nanna's kindness has gotten increasingly more drastic in the past few nights. She gets you water from the kitchen, asks if you need to talk about anything, and when you finally snap at her to fuck off (figuratively, as if you even had the balls to tell the woman who could lift a fridge to fuck anywhere), she just sighs softly, pats your leg, and wheels off to bed.

You're starting to feel really weird about it.

Maybe a little guilty. You still can't talk to anyone, still don't really want to.

  
You like the peace and quiet when everyone finally goes to fucking sleep. When it's just you and the couch and the quiet creaks of the house settling. The oscillating fan in the corner spins and clicks, blowing cool air in predictable waves. It is almost enough to lull you to sleep. The anxiety medication probably helps. They never actually took you off them when they gave you proper AEDs. You're not worried about it.

Which is all and good, because you ARE starting to worry about Dave.

Not the god (though that's pretty fucked up, isn't it, that he can time travel and shit, and neither of you have talked about it because you're pretty sure - well you don't like to be wrong so you're not going to talk about it), and you should really come up with a better way to differentiate. "The one who fused with the sprite" is too fucked up, and you can't call them Thing 1 and Thing 2 because chronologically the one who WAS a sprite is Thing 1 and you don't think either of them would appreciate being Thing 2.

So whatever. You know which is which (not that the palette rearrangement and fucked up legs aren't a dead give away, but like fuck you'd say that to his face, you're not trying to make him hate you. Again. Or more, anyway).

And maybe you don't really have much right to be worrying about him, and you're not entirely sure when exactly the feeling started, but around day five, you begin to notice something... off. Again.

You notice because you're starting to get pissy, have been for days, and not enough cigarettes in the world could deal with your frayed fucking nerves. Every little thing everyone does is an irritant, every laugh and snort and shout is just. Fucking annoying.

You'd worry about your mini-me (not that you ever have, obviously, because that would be admitting you cared about - well you just wouldn't) if you didn't know for a fact (so embarrassing you want to crawl under a goddamn rock) that Dave and all his little friends are babying the absolute shit out of him. He can't possibly like that, how they tiptoe around him, leave him to his own devices (by your count) at least three times a day. But at least he gets some measure of peace and quiet. Lucky bastard.

So maybe you start fleeing to the roof again, even though you promised you wouldn't, and after you find Dave on the balcony, two days running, you decide maybe you should actually fucking talk to him. Instead of just. Jumping up to the place behind the chimney and kind of. Watching him?

Which, in retrospect, is probably super fucking creepy.

It's not like he's doing anything, just kinda sitting there. He brings out his phone, puts it away. You see him reach for the telescope, abort the motion. You don't think he even knows how one works. You never needed one in Houston.

There are about a hundred ways you could approach the situation, but dropping down behind him silently and saying, "I could show you how it works, if you want," is probably nowhere near the list marked 'acceptable'.

He shouts, because who fucking wouldn't, and isn't it comically like Dave, to have an extra sword lodged in his sylladex, which goes flying over the balcony railing and embeds itself in the tree. Just barely missed the tire swing, which is probably a good thing. What the fuck is it with Dave and his swords?

What you say is, "You still carrying around that piece of crap sword?" You can't pretend you don't recognize it, that you aren't acutely aware it is the same sword he drew from his sternum like it was a scabbard (and that, alone, unsettles you now, makes your chest ache in a way you cannot explain). Even if you didn't spot it by the curve of the blade, you'd know that sword; you can see from the balcony that it, too, is tinted the color of your eyes.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he sighs, when he realizes it's just you. You wait for him to process what you said, watch him wince and clear his throat. "I guess I didn't think about - it's just kind of -"

"It was a part of you," you say, not unkindly. You fold yourself down on the floor beside his chair, hope he feels less threatened with you positioned lower to the ground. Your height can be a lot, you know.

"Yeah," he mumbles, picks at the peeling vinyl of the left arm. You reach out and smack his little pizza hands. It shouldn't be that beat up already, and the fact that it is means he's formed a bad fucking habit which you have no qualms about stopping. "Ow, Bro!"

"Knock it off."

"Dude fuck you, this is my wheelchair, you didn't even pay for it! If I wanna make it look shitty for fun and irony that's my own damn business." It's a low blow on his part, but he's only a little right.

"I ain't buying you a new chair just so you can ruin it twice as fast as this one. Stop pickin' at it."

He purses his lips, hides a scowl behind those shades. You can see the wrinkle in his brow. "You're an ass."

"Takes one to know one," you say, like a hypocrite. He huffs and you hide a smile. It is not inherently easy for you, to have this relationship with him. Looking at Dave - any Dave, at this point - for too long makes part of your brain go a little funny, a pinprick of a headache trying to form behind the eyes. You push back against it because fuck, it's just Dave. You raised the kid, sort of, and you definitely messed it up, but you still... like him, you think. He's funny. A little shitty. It's cool. He's a Strider. Being a little shitty is just part of the deal.

He huffs, grabs his wheels like he's thinking about taking off, doesn't. Nerves, then.

"Hey," you murmur, bump your knuckles against the hand you can reach. "What's up. Why aren't you inside chilling with the goon squad?"

You shouldn't have asked. Or maybe you should have. Dave's mask breaks open and leaves both of you so completely vulnerable that you nearly abscond for lack of desire at this blatant display of parent-child bullshit. You are the well-meaning sitcom father figure, it is you.

He drops his gaze and chews on his lip. You are used to the way Dave fidgets. He gets it from you, you know. Cracking knuckles, drumming fingers. Poorly managed anxiety, uselessness during moments of quiet, only still and perfect and poised when fighting, when trying desperately not to

Well you did that, didn't you?

He puts his hands in his lap, fingers twisting around each other. You can see the freckles on his knuckles, how they match the ones that used to cover your own. "I uh. I just feel weird, sometimes."

You hum, try not to dwell on whatever the  _fuck_  that means. Almost everything this kid says throws you for a loop. What are you supposed to say to that?  _Everyone feels weird sometimes?_ No that's a sex talk thing. _I_ _feel weird all the time?_ He'd laugh, agree, but it wouldn't help. "Kid, you're gonna have to be more specific."

He snorts, hand moving towards the chair arm again before thinking better. Good, he's learning. "I don't know why you care so much."

Fuck. Okay. This is getting a little... Hm. You battle your brain, _hard_. I don't, you want to say, though it is patently untrue. Kinda. You're at least invested in his well-being, if nothing else. "It's my job," you say, and it's not a lie, but it doesn't come across nearly as gentle as you would've liked.

He must know that, too, because Dave jerks his head up to look at you, and even behind shades it's accusatory.

"You're my kid, Dave," you clarify. "When you're upset it makes me -" Don't grind your teeth, you big idiot. Stop being an asshole. You squeeze your eyes shut briefly, adjust your shades so you can rub at them a bit. There's no way he didn't catch that. Don't freak out. Don't fuck this up. "I worry about you. Am worried. You looked..." But you don't know, because you couldn't see his face from the roof when you were, y'know, creeping on him. "You look kinda shitty, honestly."

He lets out an ugly bark of laughter. " _Wow_ , thanks. As if I'm not already a self-conscious teen struggling with his identity, now on top of that I look like SHIT and it's apparently fucking obvious to everyone I even remotely interact with."

Aw fuck, you fucked it up. "That's not what I meant, Dave. 'N I'm pretty sure you know that."

"Maybe." He drops his head back, knocks it into the chair a couple times. "I don't know what's wrong with me. It's not even that they're ignoring me, because they're not? Fuck, Dirk's friends are even going out of their way to ask me to chill with them? And shit with Jade is really weird but she acts like she  _likes_ having me around, like even when Dave is right there she'd still rather talk to me? Or something? Or she at least doesn't stop talking to me just cuz he shows up. I shouldn't feel like a complete social reject but I..." Dave is growing again, both of them, and his height doesn't lend itself well to small space, but you get the feeling that if he wasn't stuck in his chair, he'd probably curl his knees to his chest.

"Hey," you say, and you reach out, god awful slow, god awful careful, and grab his wrist. Give a lil tug. "C'mon, come on down here, get your ass outta that chair a hot minute. I know you ain't done shit since we got here. Stretch your gangly little legs. Unless you're going to physical therapy behind all our backs or something. Got yourself a fancy new Washington doctor who drives a Prius or some shit."

"Fuck you," Dave says, but it's half-hearted. He acquiesces after a beat, settles in next to you with his legs folded up and his spine bent in a C-curve. You can hardly criticize him for it, it's not like you're the prime example of good posture.

You hesitate a moment too long to complete the gesture but fuck it, you're here, you may as well do something. You put a hand between his shoulders, touch light as you can, and give a single back and forth motion. Good ol' "there there, it'll be alright," before retreating.

Apparently it wasn't the right thing to do, because Dave freezes, still like a marble statue, and stares at you like you've grown a second head.

You sigh, take off your shades. It's dark out here and both of you look cool as shit, but he's not going to remove them if you don't do something first. You never did very well, leading by example. "Listen, Dave," you start, and then you have nothing to say.

You have nothing you feel you deserve to say. Dave was Bro-less for three years, he's made it this far. He's the only one who watched you die, he's the first person you've yelled at in at least ten years, and he's. He's your shitty little kid brother and you -

You don't want him to feel like garbage, but you don't know what to say. What are you allowed to say?

"You don't have to try'n give me some pep talk about like. How my feelings or valid, or how good a person I am or some shit," Dave says, but he sounds... Well. You can't say "like shit" again. That'd be really fucking rude.

You also can't say you're surprised, because you've been watching him pick and tear at himself for months, watched him spiral, come up for air, and do it all over again. Maybe you recognize it because it feels familiar. Maybe because you've never known him well enough to notice. You hope it's the former because the latter hurts a part of you, deep inside.

He picks at the lace of his beatup sneakers. Jesus dicks, okay, you should definitely take them shopping. Never mind that you fucking hate it. There's no way in hell you bought him those shoes, which means he had to have borrowed them from mini-you, and that's just an embarrassing oversight on your part. Get it together, Bro.

"Dunno if I'd go that far," you say, but you keep it light. Don't want him thinking it's a genuine criticism of his character. You are acutely aware of how he feels about you, in general. The fear, the discomfort. Anything resembling a rebuke from you will be taken twice as harsh as it's intended, and you're not looking to make this situation worse than it already is. "Kid, I'll be honest with you, it kinda sounds like you're feeling pretty depressed, and that's not really something I'm equipped to -"

"I know," he snaps, cutting you off, and you don't cut him down to size.

Take a moment, bite back a retort. This is about Dave right now. You ARE the well-intentioned sitcom dad, you WILL be supportive. So instead of saying more, you stay quiet, know that with Dave, sometimes all it takes is a little time.

In this instance, you barely count forty-three seconds.

"Sorry," he grumbles, drags his knees to his chest. "It's really dumb. I just feel bad. I don't know why. Is that lame?"

"All feelings are lame," you say.

Fuck, no, shit, that's not what you wanted to say. If Roxy heard you say that she'd pound the snot out of you.

"I mean, they're not, fuck, I shouldn't have said that, why would you even listen to me." You scramble for the right words, something, anything. Think appropriate, parental. "It's not lame. That's some serious shit, if you're struggling with. With feeling happy or whatever?" You move your hand to run it through your hair, remember your hat, adjust the bill instead. "Fuck, Dave, I'm not exactly an expert here. But no kid should be feelin' like that. S'okay that you do, though," you add, just in case.

Dave stares at you, pushes his shades up after a moment. Then he snorts, and you see his mouth crook up at the corner. "Yeah. Thanks, Bro."

You hum, look away. Consider the sword jammed in the tree, the sunny glow it casts across the bark. Maybe you should get Dave a non-word based modus for his birthday. Something. He's gonna get hurt one of these days. Or. You don't know. Worse? You think both of you have already been through "worse".

You see him start picking at his laces again in your peripherals. "We don't have to talk about it if you don't wanna," he mumbles, just loud enough for you to hear him. Kid hasn't changed a lick in that respect.

 _Goddammit_.

"Dave," you start, sigh heavy out your nose. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"Uh. Uh, yeah." Uncomfortable shift, the scuff of his shoes across the balcony, his knuckles cracking one by one. "Sometimes I just feel - well I feel like we already kinda hashed it out? But I still feel like shit about it. Not all the time," he says hastily, before you can speak (You should've known better - it's fucking Dave, after all.) "Okay this sounds like - it sounds dumb, even in my head, but sometimes I look at them and think 'this is great, but that's not  _my_ John, that's not  _my_ Jade. These aren't  _my_ friends'. Twice over on the Jade thing now, on top of everything. I'm like." His breath hitches and you go very, very still. "I feel like a game piece that got left over. Why did I get spit out? What use am I if there's already - I mean I like Dave, right? Kinda. He's a dick. Don't know if you noticed." He looks at you and yeah, he's starting to look a little wobbly around the edges. You are in the salt water splash zone and you didn't buy your Sea World poncho on entry. Fuck that was stupid. Fuck you're an idiot.

"Can't imagine where he gets it," you say, manage to maintain some level of cool. You really don't want him to notice you freaking out. You cannot freak out in front of him, not right now. "You really need to stop this secondary Dave bullshit," you tell him, and hope it doesn't come across half as cruel as usual. You remember trying to suggest him sleeping in his own bed, how that dissolved into such a fucking mess it kept you up for three days. You missed Cal a lot, then. Hated him more, probably.

"I know," he groans, presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. Heh. Can't imagine where  _he_ gets it. "But it's not that, I think? I mean sometimes I just feel like shit for no good reason." And fuck, ain't that relatable. "It's just. Everyone I knew in my timeline is dead. It feels bad. I feel bad. I miss them? Maybe? I don't know. They're my friends, but they're not." Dave drops his head, bonks it against his knees. "Sometimes I think maybe things'd be better if I just... wasn't here."

Fuck. _Fuck_.

"Hey," you say, gruffer than you mean to be, drop your hand heavy on his head. He flinches a little, but you think you'll both get over it. "Don't fuckin' - don't talk like that. Shit's not okay. Dunno how many times I gotta tell you, kid, you're the real as fuck Dave. Don't matter if there's two of you. There's two of me, ain't there?"

Dave almost laughs. "I don't know if Dirk has done enough to deserve _that_."

You ignore him because wow, rude. Truth aside. "Thing is, kiddo, sprite or no sprite, tail or no tail. You're still my Dave. You'll always be my Dave."

"But you're not  _my_  Bro," he says immediately, and.

And fuck, if that ain't just a punch in the gut, a fracture in the part of you that's already damaged. You do not have to fight back anger, or loathing, or anything this time, because you are so. So deeply overcome with whatever emotion this is that you flounder. You are a man of few words, during the best of times. A man of distressingly, cruelly plenty, at the worst of times.

But his words shatter your heart so bad you can hear it break inside your chest.

You finally manage a soft, "Oh," take your hand back, place both of them on your knees because uh. Because. You don't know.

"Not that I don't want you to be!" he all but shouts. He grabs the sleeve of your shirt with so much force he practically punches you. "Bro, I didn't mean - fuck, I really didn't mean for that to sound like - shit fuck, I really. You are Bro, I mean obviously you are, I don't know what I'm fucking talking about, I don't -"

The alarm on his face is so uncomfortably comical you don't even know what to say. A part of you you almost don't recognize softens, just a fraction. You grab his hand, gently, gently, pry it free from your shirt. "I know, Dave. It's okay." You're at fault here, too. You should have thought more about. Fuck, his feelings, you guess. You kinda forget he's not from this timeline, either. He was the only Dave, once. He had his own Bro, once. Wonder what happened to the bastard, to leave him all alone. (You have a pretty good idea.) "I'm sorry too, okay? I ain't out here trying to pressure you into - well whatever that was." You don't know what to do with his hand like this, so you drop it back in his lap, try not to fall into the pattern of looking away just because you can't handle healthy connection with another human being. That's all on you.

His eyes make you so uncomfortable, orange over red, too light to be his, too dark to be yours. He's sad, he's a little afraid, you think. He feels like he fucked up, you KNOW you fucked up. You're the adult here. You have to be. "We'll figure it out," you say lamely. Don't say,  _I want to be your Bro, too._

"Yeah," Dave says, and you think he gets it, even if he looks all wobbly again. "Yeah, I wanna - yeah."

You really fucking suck at this. You offer a fist bump and almost feel normal when he takes it.

You need to try harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wiggly hands  
> we are almost ready to return to houston, here. who knows what will hapen next!  
> thank you guys all aGAIN for the love and support i am warm and fuzzy inside and out and i'm living <3


	24. breath of fresh heir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davesprite and John have a lot of shit to unpack, maybe more than John planned on, maybe a little less than Dave expected. They get into a shitty fight, but only for most of the chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hellooooo sorry it has been more days than usual, I have been!! Busy adulting blah blah excuse get on w the chapter, I know i know.  
> No warnings! Some teens being dramatic! Lots of feelings! No kicks in the nuts! I hope!!

You’re all leaving on Monday, with only a little under ten days until the start of the next school year. You’re not really looking forward to it. In the meantime, you have all been trying to squeeze as much summer vacation into the last week as physically possible.

You go to the pool, then the lake, then the pool again. You eat a shit ton of pizza, play a crap ton of video games. On Friday you drive into Seattle and Bro shells out way too much fucking money for you all to ride up to the top of the Space Needle in an elevator older than everyone but maybe Nanna and Grandpa. You aren’t afraid of heights, never have been, but looking out across the city, the sound, you miss your wings.

You’re definitely too old for the children’s museum, but you stare enviously down at the fake dinosaurs while you eat lunch in the Seattle Center.

Dad, watching all of you while Mom and Bro fuck off to take a break somewhere else (probably doing something illegal, you can never tell with them), says, “Don’t even think about it,” as if you would dare. Which, to be fair, okay, you would, but you’d be up and out before they ever caught you. Well YOU wouldn’t. Dave probably could, if he really wanted to, and he’s you, so he probably does.

On Saturday you go to the mall like a bunch of red-blooded American kids, which would be hell, except that John’s plan is actually to convince you to go to the tiniest movie theater you’ve ever seen to watch, of all godforsaken things, Ghostbusters 2.

“They were playing the first one earlier,” he explains, laughing, “but it was already sold out.”

It’s. Okay, you guess. You get to sit in the fancy seats that are “reserved”, though you only invite Jane and Roxy to sit with you, and Dave boos and throws popcorn at your head until the girls, laughing, throw it back. (It’s not worth it, because in the end Jane and Rose won’t let you leave the screening until it’s all picked up, though you convince Jake that you can’t possibly be of any help, and none of his friends bother to tell him you’re full of shit, so he ends up with your share of the work, what a fucking gentleman.)

  
Dirk finally manages to fix up Jane’s robobunny, and you are only slightly horrified and amazed to find it has its own miniature katana. It (he, they remind you) finds her as soon as activated, and you have never seen Dirk smile so much as he does when she sees him, squeezes him (his name is Lil Sebastian, you know) to her chest and laughs. Relief, delight. She hugs Dirk, after, and you watch him go bright fucking magenta, share a look with Dave. You shoulda had a camera ready, he’s never going to let you catch him off-guard like this again.

Bro’s face when he sees the rabbit for the first time is absolutely priceless. There’s a moment where you think he’s going to dropkick him, when Lil Seb scampers up to him, curious, leaves him standing frozen in the doorway. “What the fuck.”

“His name is Lil Sebastian,” Dirk sighs, sounds more annoyed than anything. Maybe it’s just Bro, maybe it’s that embarrassing as fuck name that you can’t bash because Jane gave it to him and they have some kind of... thing about it you guess? Whatever.

And then Bro’s expression softens ever so slightly, mouth ticking up at the corner. He scoops up the rabbit right before it can test its new katana on his leg (Dirk insists he’s still working out the kinks but it seems pretty intent on perceiving the dude as a threat, in your opinion). He gives him a look over, and you’ve never seen Bro exam anything that closely that wasn’t graced with a bulbous ass or foam nose. He lets out an appreciative hum, gives a short nod. “Heavier than I thought he’d be. Not lithium powered, then.”

“Yeah, because it’s fucking URANIUM,” Dave says, tone accusatory, while Dirk looks heavenward and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Dave, I told you, it’s not a big deal. Jane said in doses this small we won’t develop super cancer until long after everyone in the known universe dies.”

“I definitely didn’t say that,” Jane protests weakly.

Bro drops Lil Seb to the ground immediately, though the bunny lands on his feet. “You made a mini Chernobyl waiting to happen, is what you’re tellin’ me.”

Dirk’s mouth curls down, and you see his jaw clench tight. “Technically -”

“It’s okay, really,” Jane says quickly, and she speeds forward, grabs Lil Seb up gently. He wiggles free and climbs until he’s perched on her shoulder like a parrot. “I haven’t noticed any kind of negative reactions without direct contact to his core, although I have a feeling that has a lot to do with his protective candy coating, wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Strider?”

“Uh,” Dirk says, and you watch him relax a little, shoulders lowering from their defensive curl. Jane is a straight-up Dirk whisperer and none of you give her enough credit. You’ve never seen him so speechless in your life. “Yeah, it’s. Yeah.”

Bro hums, regarding both of them, and then gives a slow nod, makes a hasty retreat across the room towards the front door. He pauses for a second, and you think he’s going to say something, but changes his mind at the last minute.

Dave sighs when the door slams closed behind him. “I would almost kinda love like, five seconds of narration for what goes on in that guy’s head.”

“No,” you say around a snort, a crooked smile, “you really wouldn’t.”

 

“Hey Dave?” John whispers to you after dinner, and he looks a little uncomfortable. It’s your worst goddamn nightmare, this weird look he’s giving you, and the fact that you’ve been cool for the past week doesn’t seem to have lessened the awkward tension between you. “Can I talk to you about something? In, um, private?”

You are currently experiencing what scientists of the future will call “OH FUCK” syndrome, anxiety pouring off of you in what you’re pretty sure is palpable waves, but the only sound you can make is a strangled, “Uh-huh.”

He grins, doesn’t give you anything else, and then turns to your friends. “Dave and I are going to buy ice cream for everyone. No need to thank us, it’s hard work but someone’s gotta do it! Any flavor requests?”

It turns out they do, in fact, have flavor requests, but Dirk doesn’t say anything at all, is staring directly at you over Jake’s shoulder in a way that’s a little unnerving.

He tips his head to the side and you understand, give a half-hearted shrug, shake your head an inch. You’re not happy, but it’s cool. Probably?

List in hand, you head towards the door, wonder if John even remembers he’s got to pop the trunk for your chair, that you can fold it yourself but can’t quite lock it into place without help when you’re sitting in the passenger seat. Fuck this is stupid.

And then you feel bad for doubting him, because of course he’s been watching Bro or someone else do it for a week, and he doesn’t even ask as you crawl into the seat, has it folded up and is hauling it into the trunk without a word.

Uh. Whoa.

You feel warmth spread in your chest, then you feel like you’re giving him to much credit, and then you come back around to feeling guilty for not trusting him in the first place.

“Thanks,” you say anyway, when he trots back around and climbs into the front seat. He deserves that, at least.

John grins at you, rolls his eyes. “Duh, you’re welcome. It’s not like you would do it yourself, even if you could.”

Your hand tenses on the buckle but you know he’s just messing around, that you’re being jumpy for no reason, so you say, “Yeah you’re probably right. What kind of dapper gentleman  would you be if I didn’t let you give me the proper treatment a lady of my caliber deserves?”

He just snorts at you and starts the car. “I know it’s too dark for you to see with your silly shades on, but just know, I am absolutely rolling my eyes at you again. Right now.”

People keep doing things for you, and you keep being surprised. Maybe it’s because you - You don’t know. Isolated yourself? For so long? Under a maybe (you’re starting to realize) misguided pretext that they didn’t want you around in the first place. John called you Dave first, didn’t he? He still does, even thought it gets confusing and you

You don’t know.

You feel like you’re rationalizing how shitty things were. You’re still workings through some stuff, you guess.

You want it to be better now, anyway.

He keeps glancing at you on the way to the store. You kinda thought maybe it was a ruse, just trying to get you alone, that you’d sit in the driveway for a few minutes, and when you came back empty-handed you’d be in on some kind of joke. But John has always been genuine that way, you guess. He’s no stalwart skeptic, not like Jane, but he’s got a pretty solid head on those shoulders.

“If you’ve got something to say you should say it, dude,” you finally tell him, when the glances increase to three-and-five second intervals and you start to get uncomfortable. “Your hasty lil glances are only cute in romantic subplots and the trashy novels your grandma read at night when she thought no one was lookin’.”

“Gross! Nanna does not read -”

“How would you know?” You smirk when he snaps his mouth closed, and even though it was kinda dickish, you give yourself a point on the board anyway.

John huffs, bites his lip with his big dumb teeth. It’s dark in the car, quiet. The roads that make loops around his neighborhood are quiet, empty during the dinner hour, and the two of you steal peeks across the center console in the dim light provided by streetlight after streetlight. You wonder when it got so hard for you to talk to other people. Or at least, to John. You kinda wish he’d turn on some music or. Or something. What do they even listen to in Washington? Do they have radio stations? I mean, duh, of course, they gotta. Duh. You bet they don’t have Que Buena live from Houston goddamn Texas though. Fucking shameful, right there.

“Um,” he finally says, bites his cheek. John’s jaw is squarer than you remember, or maybe it’s not, and you really are further out of the loop than you thought. He really is starting to look like Jake, though, haha. Cleaner shaven, though. Jake’s pathetic boy-whiskers have been the source of many a “right bullying” since your trip began.

“Hey,” you interrupt, and he looks at you briefly. “Remember the fist time you shaved on the ship?”

John snorts. “I remember you being a huge dick about it, is what I remember.” But he’s smiling. “That’s back when you were still using your sprite powers all the time.”

“Yeah.” Shit was still fun, then. You and Jade had started dating that year, and you guys were still playing shitty games together. “It’s not my fault you couldn’t read an entire book in less than five minutes by absorbing it magically, y’know. You and Jade both, reading like 250 words per minute like a couple’a chumps. Fuckin’ embarrassing if you ask me. Someone had to pick up the slack.”

“Heh,” he says. “I think you’re just mad because you didn’t have anything to read anymore after that second year. We stopped playing board games that year too, huh? I wonder if we just got tired of doing the same thing over and over.”

“Yeah,” and fuck, no, Dave, stop, “or maybe it’s because after Jade and I broke up you stopped talking to me pretty much full fucking stop.” Fuck, shit, you didn’t mean to say that. You squeeze your eyes shut tight. Idiot idiot _idiot_.

John frowns, squeezes the wheel in both hands. “Um. Okaaaay, I didn’t mean to make you mad again. If I knew you wanted to play games and stuff I would have -”

“I didn’t,” you snap. “There was no point. I knew all the rules. It felt like cheating every time I fucking ground you guys to dust at _Clue_ , of all things.”

“Then why did you bring it up!” He throws up a hand before returning it quickly to proper steering position. Perfect little boyscout, over here. “I’m sorry things sucked so hard for you, being a bird-sprite person, and I”m really tired of fighting with you, Dave! It’s terrible and I hate it!”

“I know,” you sigh, grind your hands into your eyes. “Shit, I know, dude, but you can’t keep blaming shit on me being part bird. I’m not even doing that anymore. Or,  _I_ never did.”

“But I don’t know how to handle your -” He flaps his hand vaguely. “Your whatever it is you’re trying to do here? I’ll be honesty dude I don’t actually get what you’re picking a fight about right now?”

“I don’t know.” You drag your hands down your face, hide there and try to breathe for a moment. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just trying to sabotage whatever you wanna talk about now because I don’t want to talk about my feelings later? It’s not a big deal, s’not like you ever cared before.”

“I would have if you let me!” John all but shouts, slaps his hands against the wheel for lack of anything else to do. It lets out a horrible groan.

Uh.

“John.”

“No one ever told me anything because you all thought I was sooooo immature! That I’d freak out if you said anything at all.”

“John, uh -”

“You two always kept secrets from me, it was so lame. Dude, Jade didn’t even want to tell me when you guys broke up. I had to like. Bug her into it.” The smell of ozone fills the car, like rain before a lightning strike. Sharp. Clear.

He’s not listening, you don’t think he even realizes he’s doing it. “ _John_ -”

“You became a sprite and you knew everything - or you thought you did, and.” You pull up to the stop sign and all the fight goes out of him in a single beat, his shoulders dropping, his grip slackening. He sighs so hard you can practically see the air roll across the dashboard, rolls his head to look at you. “And you were so fucking mean, Dave.”

He’s - he’s right. You were. You were downright nasty to John sometimes, even when you didn’t really mean to be. You did a lot of shit you regret now, and you can hardly say _“sorry, I was going through some shit!”_ even if you were. “I -” you choke. “I know. I was just. Frustrated. You guys always acted like I was just some extra asshole along for the ride. She and I were sprites together and it - it wasn’t fair. You and Jade were godtier and I was just.” You drop your head, pinch your lips. Fuck. “I was just Davesprite. I was stuck there. I felt alone.”

“But it wasn’t just us, Dave,” and he’s not trying to be an asshole. You know John better than he’d like, and he can be an absolute idiot, but he’s rarely cruel on purpose. Asshole, yes, but never cruel. “We had Nanna. And Jaspers too, I guess?”

Your teeth grind together so hard you can hear your jaw squeak. “That’s my other point.”

“What?”

“Nanna. Jaspers. The fucking _cat_. But I was always Davesprite. Or Dave Sprite.”

He mouth flaps uselessly for a second. “You asked people to call you that!”

“Because I didn’t feel like I deserved to be Dave!” And now you’re throwing  _your_ arms up and it’s a fucking disaster.

“What do you want me to _do_ , Dave? I’m trying to make up but I feel like you’re making it really hard.”

“I know,” you groan, bury your face in your hands again. “I’m sorry.” You really thought you could stop doing this after you all apologized the other day, but you guess you’re kind of a mess. You should have known better.

“I just,” John starts, trails off a second. He doesn’t sound mad at you, doesn’t look angry at all, when you raise your head Wind tickles the edge of his bangs and you suppress a shiver as cold air brushes against your neck. “I don’t get it, Dave. Like, my dad died, too. I had to bury him. My own dad. And your Bro, and Rose’s mom, too. And that sucked.”

You know. You remember. They both laughed at Bro’s funeral. You bite down on that. “It was really fucking gross, for sure.”

“But we didn’t respond to that by being huge assholes to everyone else,” he says, and you get the idea he means it lightly. There is a veritable air current in the car now, and you feel a little uncomfortable. Or more uncomfortable, anyway.

“I mean,” you say, even thought you shouldn’t, “you kinda did. You forgot me every time I turned my back for five seconds. For three years.”

He lets out a startled, mostly humorless laugh. “Dude are you serious? You hid in your room half the time! We couldn’t even  _find_ you!”

“Maybe because I was fucking depressed? Dude? I felt like shit. You really didn’t notice me sleeping ninety percent of the time?”

He knocks his head back against the seat. “What do you want me to say?”

And for a moment, you don’t know. He already (kinda) apologized to you for shit being crazy. He’s still John (not your John), he’s still your best friend (he’s Dave’s best friend), and you still desperately want - you don’t know. Something. You want everything to be okay. “I want you to admit that even though I sucked, maybe you sucked just as much.” Welp.

“You made fun of my dead dad, Dave!” He’s gripping the wheel again. It groans ominously. Wind starts to whip up around both of you, and the windows shake a little. You scramble to grip the door handle in a panic. You’ve never seen him this out of control.

“John -”

He doesn’t fucking notice, because of course he doesn’t, he’s too busy throwing a goddamn tantrum while you’re trapped in a confined space together, sitting in the middle of the road like a couple of assholes.

“I know you were time hopping or whatever but it was  _one day_  for me before the ship. One fucking day!” The wheel shudders.

“John, pull over.”

“I couldn’t even save him because my powers are _useless_!”

A crack appears on the driver’s side window.

“John! Pull over! You need to stop -”

“You weren’t the only one mourning someone, Dave!”

Glass can break at about a mile a second, and you are already too late by the time “ _No_!” makes it out of your mouth.

Everything happens in bullet time. The sound of cracking, shattering. Your hands, stretched out on both sides, an automatic, foolish reaction. John, curling his arm up to cover his face, steering wheel still tight in his grasp.

With your fingers outstretched, you feel energy flood your veins, like the first time you traveled in the medium, like when you helped Dave, like when  _you_  were Dave, still Just Dave, and it radiates outwards like a pulse as the windows explode in a million pieces, and everything in the car but you and John goes completely still.

The first thing you notice is that the shards of glass, frozen midair, remind you of snow. The second is that John is clutching the steering wheel to his chest, and that he has somehow pulled it completely out of the socket.

“Uh,” John says.

“Uh,” you say.

“What the fuck,” he whispers, and he’s the first to move, reaches out to move away some of the fragments that were about to blast him in the face. They don’t resist, but also don’t fall away at his touch, not even when you drop your hands, dumbfounded.

“Uh,” you say again

“What, uh,” he giggles nervously. “What’s going on there?”

You have no fucking clue. You’re not godtier, you’re not any kind of tier as far as you know, and you haven’t done any version of time traveling since you became a sprite, if you don’t count whatever the fuck you did that night back in July. But you’re not a sprite anymore, you guess, so.

“I don’t know,” you say weakly. You should both get out of the car, push it out of the street or, or clear the glass away before you hurt yourselves or. Something? You need to do something. You have no idea what. A nervous laugh. You just froze time.

John is still holding the wheel at eight and four. “Can you like. Fix it?”

“No,” you say immediately. Wince. “Maybe? No, I don’t know. I don’t have my timetables, and I’m not - I’m not a god.”

“Then how the fuck are we supposed to ...” John holds up his wheel in both hands and you start laughing. It’s not even - well okay it’s pretty funny. You’re not sure if you’re the one keeping the airbags from going off but you kind of fucking hope so.

“Dude,” you say, snorts muffled behind your hand, “hell if fucking I know.”

He sighs, head dropping. “This was all really ridiculous, huh?”

“Yeah,” you say, but you don’t feel as stressed now. The wind is gone, the smell of wet asphalt all that’s really left of his tantrum. “You know that was you, right?”

“Umm, yeah,” he says slowly, mouth twisting down. “I mean. I’ve been trying to control it for awhile, but honestly I haven’t had much luck."

You guess you can get that. Well you can't. You and Dave didn't know either of you could do anything until it was happening. John is... Well. Powerful, for one goddamn thing. Terrifying, for another. "Does your dad know?"

"No," he says immediately. "I don't really want to worry them with all this. It’s not like it was in the game, you know? Things are... different. The air is different.” He looks at you. “Does that make sense?”

“No,” you tell him, and his face falls, so you backpedal. “I mean, I was always the Time guy, I never learned shit about other aspects, John. Fuck do I know about your little windsock-based hurricane bullshit? Fucking nothing, is what. You think they let you keep all your knowledge when you stop being a sprite? Absolutely fucking not. I’m a certified idiot, good luck, you’re on your own, kid.”

John cracks a grin, looks down at his hands. “Dad is gonna ground me for an eternity for this.”

“Unless we can fix it,” you say.

“Unless we can fix it,” he agrees, and you wait for him to catch the drift. “Oh - oh, shit! Yeah!” He scrambles for his phone and you wince when he almost gets his whole face sliced open by hovering death shards, grab his hand before you can stop yourself. He gives you this curious look and you clear your throat, look away.

“Sorry. The glass is - just be careful, alright?”

You have never been particularly strong against that crooked smile, the shine in his blue eyes, and you scowl when he laughs.

“Wooowwww, Dave, don’t make it  _too_ obvious you care about me, someone might see you doing something nice for once.”

“Dude, Egbert, fuck off,” you mumble, but he laughs even when you rip your hand back and shove him a little.

  
The car is quiet while you two wait. John is staring at the wheel like he might try to put it back on, while you try to count the speckles of glass that hang millimeters from your eyes. It’s kinda bullshit, really. You can freeze such a small area in time, but you can’t do anything else. Can’t fucking unfreeze it, that’s for damn sure. You hope you don’t make a habit of this. You’re not really up for the responsibility of having like. Actual time powers in whatever context that means outside the game. This is - well, calling it the real world seems lame. It’s something. It’s supposed to be your happy ending, you guess. Or Dave’s, anyway.

“Hey. John,” you say, in a pathetic attempt to distract yourself.

“Mm?”

“What did you want to talk to me about? Before I fucked it all up.”

He lets out a puff of air that’s not quite a laugh. “You didn’t fuck it up all by yourself. It’s my fault too. For saying those things about you being a bird, or not being a bird or whatever. Being depressed - like, really depressed? That sounds like a pretty big deal, and like it was really hard for you to deal with, and stuff.”

“It still is,” you say softly, though you don’t mean to.

He nods, and his smile is weak. “I know shit was pretty messed up with your bro. Well. I didn’t really know, before. But I guess I kinda do, now. I shouldn’t have said those things about him versus my dad. It wasn’t ever a competition.”

“Yeah,” you mumble, let out a shuddering breath. “There’s an awful good chance that I was pretty bitter about how good you had it with your dad, even though you guys all complained and stuff. They really loved you and - anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m sorry, John. Again. For everything that happened there.”

He reaches out and you almost flinch away, go completely still when he grabs your hand, gives it a little squeeze before retreating. “Me too. I’m sorry. I, uh, did fuck up - well a lot, actually? But especially with you. And how you’re just Dave - and you always were, and somewhere in there I acted like I forgot that, and that’s my fault too. I’m sorry dude.”

There is something just absolutely liberating about being “Just Dave”, even if it’s coming three years late, even if you and him have been really shitty to each other. It feels good. It feels. Well. It feels right, again. Maybe for the first time in a long time. “Bros?” You offer a fist.

He gives you a toothy grin, and you squash down the warmth that floods through you when he bumps you back. Not right now, loser. “C’mon, man, always.”

“So what was it?” you ask again. You figure it couldn’t have been any of the shit you just laid bare. He said he was tired of fighting, and fuck you are too, and you two couldn’t have possible talked about Jade without dissolving into bickering, so again, unlikely.

“I dunno if it’s really -”

Sigh. You are so tired of this. “Dude, just fucking tell me.”

“I want to take Jade and Jake ice skating,” he blurts, and the car goes completely silent.

You cannot help the laugh that bubbles out of your mouth. You know immediately exactly why he didn’t want to say it in front of everyone else, and that doesn’t make it any less stupid. “Hahaha,” comes out before you can stop it. “Are you fucking kidding me? All this trouble for _that_?”

“Dave, shut up, I’m serious,” he groans. “I didn’t want to hurt your feelings on account of - of, you know, the uhhh..”

You grin like an absolute shit head. “On account’a what, John? Why did you think I’d be bothered, John?”

“Ugh, Dave, come on, shut up.” He hides his face, peeks at you between fingers. “It doesn’t bug you?”

“Nah,” you say, and you shrug. You get it. You know why he’s worried. But you’ve never been ice skating anyway, so what do you care? Bro had you running ragged near every goddamn day, but skating was never on the syllabus. “I don’t know how, even if I could. It’d be embarrassing as fuck.” You pause, think about it. “I reckon watching Dave eat shit is going to be pretty hilarious, though.”

“That’s not the point, Dave,” he says, and when you frown, quirk a brow, he doesn’t quite laugh. “Seriously? Oh my god.” John rubs his eyes, drags them down his face. “It’s not the fact that you don’t know how. It’s that we’re going to do something you  _can't_  do. I didn’t ask because I was worried you might not know how and it’d be embarrassing. Even if you don’t want to, your feelings matter, dude. If we go you’d either be staying home or like. Coming with and sitting on the sidelines. I don’t want that to be a big point of contention between us. Does that make sense? So you’re _sure_ it doesn’t bother you?”

You open your mouth. Close it. That’s. Probably the most considerate anyone has ever been to you since. Well, ever, really. At least as long as you’ve been a sprite, maybe longer. It’s definitely the fucking nicest John’s been to you, personally. You choke on a reply. “Uh. Yeah, I don’t.” You shouldn’t feel this emotional. It’s silly. It’s not a big deal. You don’t want it to be a big deal. You’ve never wanted any of this to be a big deal. “It’s fine. I don’t care that much. I mean,” because you do, actually, and if you lie you’ll just fight again. “I guess I care, a little. It sucks, because that’s something I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to do? Who knows. But uh. Nah. Nah, man, let’s do it. Show those island bums a good fucking time, watch everyone fall on their asses for a good hour or whatever.”

John laughs, part relief, part mischief. “Do you think Rose has ever gone before?”

You snort. “Please, Rose “perfect at everything” Lalonde? I’m sure she has _medals_ , dude.”

“I don’t know about that,” he says, almost like he knows something you don’t, but you don’t care enough to ask. You’re not falling into another trap of Egbertian make, not again. “So it’s cool?” he asks again.

“John,” you say, slowly, so he gets it, “if you ask me a-fucking-gain, I’m going to punch you. And it’s going to hurt.”

“Okay, okay,” he huffs, rolls his eyes in the dark. He holds up the wheel so you can see. “Any chance Dirk can help me put this back on before Dad sees?”

Your mouth curls up, all on its own. “Not a chance in fucking hell, dude.”

  
Dave rolls up in the other car less than ten minutes later. You two are only a couple blocks away from the store, you could probably walk from here, (bad phrasing), but instead you stay where you are because being pricked by a thousand tiny pieces of glass isn’t your idea of a good time. He hangs heavy out the passenger side, chin in hands, a rude grin spread across his face. “Well howdy there, ladies, y’all need a lift on this fine evening? Gonna be up front, we’re gonna need payment, and these fellas here don’t accept nothin’ but cold hard japes. I’m talking your finest, most carefully crafted puns, gags, and goofs. None of that knock-knock shit, or you’ll be knock-knocked the fuck out, y’hear? So what say you? Lookin’ for a ride?”

“Not from you,” John laughs, sticks out his tongue. “The only thing less sexy than hanging out a window like a doofus is the fact that you’re wearing sunglasses at night. Please, Dave, haven’t you heard? Ladies don’t want your number, no -”

“We’re not gonna give you ours, yeah, yeah, yuck it up later,” you interrupt loudly. “Can you please just fucking park and help us outta this shit-ass conundrum that I definitely played a part in creating but which, tellin’ the illest of truths here, is definitely mostly John’s fault?”

“Hey!” he says, smacking at you, but you brush him off, trying to wiggle around the glass to pull the handle open.

Jane's the one driving, and she pulls off to the side of the road carefully. Heh. She's a better driver than John. You’re lucky it’s late, that the street isn’t crowded, or at least that no one has driven by, yet. What a fucking mess to explain that would be. Her eyes are huge as she circles the car, comes around your side to help you open the door. “What the hell _happened_?”

“Well uh,” you laugh weakly, make a show of nudging the glass shards.

“Can you fix it?” John is asking Dave, who’s poking his head in to have a look.

He winces when a bit of the mess slices his cheek open, clucks his tongue. “Probably can’t do anything about the wheel, but... Do I have to? Can’t you just like. Buy new windows?”

“Dude,” you say, and you really shouldn’t have to. The car is essentially frozen in fucking time right now. There is shit hovering in mid-goddamn-air and you  _know_ he can see it. “What do you think is gonna happen if we show up at an auto shop like this? They’re just gonna think, ‘huh that’s real weird, but a’ight, seen worse. Let’s get to work, boys’? Fuck no. Just fix it.”

Dave frowns at you, sighs. “Okay, I can give it a shot, but I just wanna say, this seems hells of rude, makin’ me clean up a mess you two made.”

“If I was a god, I’d do something about it,” you grunt. “You want me to pray to you first?”

“Nah, that ain’t my style,” he says, but his voice sounds distant, and you know he's concentrating now, swear you can see something change around him, and you all cringe when he stretches his arm out, pushes right into the thick of the glass like it’s a bowl of pudding instead of sharp as shit diamond dust. He mutters something under his breath you don't quite catch, but makes John laugh a little, and when he flicks his wrist, you feel a pull in your gut as everything shifts to the left and you are suddenly debilitated by nausea you cannot control or explain.

The air shudders, vibrates outward from his hand like ripples through water, following a sound only you can hear, the heavy bass beat of Time. The glass sings to the thump thump thump of your heart in your ears, ozone burning in your nostrils, the phantom of a Breeze caressing your neck, all in reverse. And then Dave steps back, hand still splayed, long thin fingers dragging the window shards in reverse. No one else seems to feel it the way you do, and you have to close your eyes against the red that burns their corners, the ticking clock that beats at your skull.

You hear the crack and hum of glass shattering, or unshattering, John whispering “holy shit” softly, and then all at once it’s over. Your stomach settles, your headache dulls, and you open your eyes.

John is frowning down at his steering wheel, still disconnected from the console, and Jane has leaned in beside you, one hand on the newly repaired door, the other touching your own. Her fingers are warm, unreasonably small. You are sure you’re imagining the way your face heats up under her scrutiny.

“Stop making that face, it’s embarrassing,” Dave says, voice muffled behind a pane of glass on the driver’s side, and you yank your hand back from Jane so you can flip him off.

“Whatever the  _fuck_ you just did?” you rasp, still feeling shaky around the corners, “don’t do it again.”

“I keep tellin’ you I don’t want to,” Dave says, gives a shrug. “But no fucking promises, I guess, if this keeps happening.”

You, John, and Jane all see the opportunity, and you take it. In perfect, monotone glory, you say, “It keeps hapening,” and Dave turns bright fucking red. You hide a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the positive feedback last chapter I did not realize it would cause so many Feelings I am sorry.  
> This was originally gonna be a long long chapter but it split itself pretty cleanly so hopefully next chapter sooner rather than later!


	25. (n)ice capades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davesprite helps fix a car, and has an uncomfortable conversation with someone who cares about him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!!! I am so sorry, I went on a fancy vacation and binge-watched two full series, whoops!  
> No warnings this time except for some off-color jokes by Rose and Dave lol

John’s dad radiates Fatherly Disappointment like Jade used to ooze green light, but honestly it still seems like he gets off easy to you, with a frown and a “We’ll talk about this later.” Which, to be fair, you don’t have the best frame of reference for punishment, so maybe it’s suitable, considering none of you actually got ice cream, in the end. Straight up children’s movie bullshit, if anyone asks you, which they haven’t. You did a shit job, son, now go to bed without your dessert. Fucking abysmal.

The car snafu will wait until morning, which is all and good for you, considering that talk left you exhausted and desperately in need of a fucking break.

Dirk is the one who takes you upstairs, and you are still tired of it, maybe getting more and more irritated each day, but you let him, because you know he wants to check on you, and because it means at least a moment of silence with no Crockharlishberts, and you need that. Desperately.

“Everything cool now?” he asks, and you grin, don’t grunt when he all but drops you in the blanket nest. Pile. Whatever.

“Yeah,” you say, and mean it. He may be Bro, to a point, but there’s a kindness there that you don’t really see too often. It’s ridiculously endearing. “I wasn’t really expecting - yeah. I mean, we’re lucky I didn’t get glass in my fucking eyes. Going blind on top of being a cripple would just be a shitty cosmic joke, and I’ve got enough of that going on already.”

He doesn’t quite smile at that, something a little closer to a grimace, and okay, maybe your morbid-ass jokes don’t have to land every time. Shake it off, Dave, there’s always next time. You tug his hand and drag him down into the pile. Dude can literally always use a nap. You’ve never met a human that slept less than he does. “You don’t have to worry so much all the time, y’know. John ‘n I are friends.”

“Mm,” he hums, doesn’t really look at you. You can almost see the gears turning there, behind his shades. He’s more transparent than he thinks he is. Heh. “I suppose I just -” He clucks his tongue. “Might be projecting a little, if we're being honest with ourselves, here. It’s hard for me not to see the parallels between your relationship with John and mine, with Jake.”

Oh. You feel yourself go red from the neck up. “Uh - I mean we were never - I didn’t - well, okay I - um.” You cover your face with your hands. “Dirk, have you ever considered you think too much?”

“See that’s what  _I'm_ saying,” Dave says as he pops up around the edge of the door. Dirk just snorts, doesn’t complain when Dave pretty much bowls him over. “I’m fucking beat after using my super awesome time powers to save your skin. Can we please go to bed now?”

You and Dirk snicker and you set your shades aside so Dave can see you roll your eyes. Then you grab your favorite blanket and cocoon yourself before they can stop you.

  
You very much expect for most of your day to be spent bored out of your gourd watching your friends do something you can’t.

What you don’t expect is to start that day sitting in Jane’s dad’s car staring at the back of Bro’s head.

“Did I really need to come with for this?” you gripe, tug at the seatbelt until it locks into place. It’s not having any of your shit today, and it definitely doesn’t care how unhappy you are. Safety first, dunkass.

Dave, beside you, leans over and pokes you in the side, hard. “Hey, you’re part of the problem here, you’re gonna help fix it.”

“Then why are  _you_ here,” you huff, bat at his hands. “Why didn’t you invite Dirk instead?”

“Cuz, this asshole actually knows shit about cars.” Dave kicks the back of Bro’s seat, receives a nasty glare in return. You think the two of you are getting pretty ballsy, and maybe you should reel it in a little. Or maybe nah. He probably wouldn’t push your shit in with Jane here. Which, okay, now, hold on just a fucking minute.

“I notice John ain’t here. He’s the one who fucking ripped the wheel clean off, I didn’t do anything but try’n stop his little tantrum, how come he doesn’t have to play pit crew today?”

“That would be because he’s getting a breakfast lecture from his father,” Jane says instead. “About the importance of responsibility and respecting other people’s things.” At the stop sign, she cranes her head to give you a patient look, amusement that sparkles in her eyes, big and blue and _Jesus_ , you’re a mess. “Do  _you_ want a breakfast lecture, Dave?”

“Uh,” you say, will yourself not to turn bright red.

Bro looks at you in the rearview smugly. “Yeah, Dave,” he drawls. “You wanna lecture? It’s a bit on the spot, but I’m sure I could whip somethin’ up right now, if you want.”

“Not from you,” both of you snap, and you don’t think you’re imagining the way his mouth crooks up as he turns away.

  
You  _know_ you’re not imagining the absolutely batshit smile he gets on his face when he pulls the door open and you, sitting in the passenger’s side of John’s car, hand him the wheel.

“Dude, stop,” you say, watching him climb in, long limbs folding into the space with too much ease. Why did you agree to this? (You didn’t, really, but Jane suggested it with her big dumb eyes and Dave threw you to the oversized wolf and well. Here you are.) “It’s bad enough I had no clue you could do this in the first place, I don’t need to watch you get off on this shit on top of it.”

He snorts softly, ignores you as he looks over the groove where the wheel is supposed to fit. “Doesn’t seem too hard a fix. If we can get that bolt out, it’ll be smooth sailin’.”

“You can actually do it?” You don’t mean to sound surprised. Maybe you’re just a little miffed that Dave knows something about him you don’t. That’s probably stupid. You’re - okay, you’re not the same. Something close, maybe. “Fix cars, I mean,” you clarify. “You never brought that up before. Uh. Not that we talked about that kind of stuff. Or anything, at all, I guess.” You clear your throat, hands twisting involuntarily into your shirt. You’re not afraid of him, you think. Not like you used to be, but sometimes you still. You don’t know. Can’t find the right words, you guess. It’s hard. Asking Bro for things. “I don’t really know where I’m going with this.”

He sighs out his nose. “Any way I can say ‘you never asked’ and get you off my back about this?”

“No,” you snap, and maybe it’s not so fucking hard after all. God, he can be so - ugh. It doesn’t matter. “Like seriously, what’s up with that, anyway? I don’t remember you ever having a job like that, not the entire time you existed.” Saying ‘lived’ is morbid, and last time you brought up his death was. Well you fucked up. That’s all there is to say on the matter.

“And what the fuck was your job, anyway? I used to think you did some kind of -” You flap a hand around, struggle for words that don’t sound fucking idiotic. “I don’t fucking know. Rap-slash-ventriloquist act with Cal? Or something? But the older I got the more I realized how ridiculous that sounded, like John thinkin’ his dad was a street performer with a, a businessman shtick, or whatever.” You drop your head against the seat, stare at your hands. “I really don’t know anything about you, do I?”

“Dave,” he mutters, and you hear the click of him tapping John’s wheel against the dashboard. You really need to stop unloading on the most emotionally unavailable person you know. There’s only the gentle tap for a hot minute, and you know he’s fishing around for something to say. “Look, kid,” he starts, only hesitates a second. “Look kid, I got time, I’ll listen to you while you spit rhymes. Catch me sittin’ here on the threshold, don’t mind if you bear your soul, so long as you can hold this roll.” Bro’s tool roll appears in his hand instantly. Like magic. Like his modus, and you wrestle on a grin you can’t quite stop as he shoves it into your lap. He turned on tech-hop for you.

“I thought it didn’t let you get away with slant rhymes,” is all you say, unfolding it and handing him back what you hope is actually a wrench.

“Yeah, well,” he says, shrugs. He’s got his tongue in his cheek. “You’d be surprised what a shitty outdated system lets you get away with.”

“You really shouldn’t talk about yourself that way,” you say without thinking, pulling your phone out of your pocket. You really can’t imagine you’ll do much good here.

“Watch it,” he grouches, but it’s not a tone you recognize immediately, more distracted than actually annoyed as he puts the seat all the way back and gets to work. It reminds you of seeing him hunched over his computer, typing code, or fixing the Xbox for the thousandth time (you have yet to red ring it since you got back - an impressive accomplishment for you, as far as you’re concerned). It’s Bro in his comfort zone, Bro something approximating ease, and you feel weird, out of place. It’s not like before, nothing’s like it was before, and you can’t stop worrying something will go wrong. He’ll go wrong. He’ll change his mind, make you fix everything, he’ll - fuck. You don’t know. You’re panicking for no reason. Everything is fine. You’re being ridiculous.

“So,” you say, because you stew in your own thoughts the way most people brine meat. “Egbert’s couch. Better than the futon, yes or yes?”

“Mm, I’d say solid seven outta ten,” he says, and you scoff, appalled. “It beats the futon in comfort, shit’s softer than puppet ass, may as well be sleepin’ on a fucking cloud, but.” His eyes flick to you behind his shades and his cheek muscles spasm in something resembling a smile. “Futon beats it for length to vertical ratio. My feet’ve been numb for nearin’ on a week now.”

You don’t return it. That couch holds precious sleep-filled memories for you. “Then why don’t you sleep on the floor?”

“I have,” he snorts, turns the wheel over to look at the locking mechanism. “Twice. How the fuck did he get this out so cleanly?”

“Crockbert lineage. They’re hells of strong.” You hand him the roll when he flaps his hand at you. “What happened?”

He takes it without thanks. Dick. “Got yelled at, obviously.” Bro picks up something, squints. Puts it back. Ends up with a pair of tiny pliers before he shoves the whole thing back into your lap. “Best not to let it happen again.”

It’s funny, in a way. You can’t really imagine anyone yelling at Bro. Mom, maybe. You sorta did, that one time. But you don’t know. It’s foreign. Makes him feel more like... you don’t know. A person, you guess. Ugh. Weird. You think of him standing there in the living room, bent at the waist, Nanna beaming with her hundred watt smile.

“You really did know her, huh?”

He doesn’t even look, twists himself so that he’s halfway upside down just under the dashboard. It’s improbable and uncomfortable all at the same time. “Who.”

“John’s Nanna. Um.” You cough a little. “Jane.”

Bro’s mouth is as even and unkind as ever, and you think maybe you pissed him off. “I guess,” he mumbles, quiet enough that it almost makes you jump. “For a short while, anyway.”

You have no clue what that fucking means. He’s not giving you much to work with. But he’s always kinda been like that. “It’s funny,” you offer. “How that worked out. But it makes sense.”

His mouth curls down a little. “Mm.”

“Have you seen Dirk with her?” You decide to push it, just a little. “Dude you’re like. The same person sometimes, it’s hilarious.”

“I think we should change the subject,” he says, terse. Uncomfortable. And you don’t want to, because you feel like you were getting somewhere, but you’re not going to risk - whatever. Whatever him being mad now will mean for you.

“Okay,” you say instead. “Are you almost done?”

“Could be if this screw wasn’t _stuck_ ,” he says between grit teeth.

You shrug, even though he can’t see it. “S’a old car, sort of. If it’s the same one, it was stuck on Skaia for a bit.”

“Do much driving?”

You don’t really want to talk about it. “Nah. John wouldn’t let me, or I didn’t want to.” You drum a hand along the seat, think about his wild grin and wind-swept hair. “Wings didn’t fit real well in a car, anyway, and I didn’t have. Um. Feet. To push the pedals with. So.” Shrug again.

“Yeah, that’s - right.” He untangles himself and sits back in the seat. Clears his throat like he’s gonna say something important. “Listen, Dave -”

“I don’t care,” you blurt. “I mean. It’s fine. And stuff. It’s not like I would even know what to do if I had tried, after all.”

Bro’s gaze has become no less intimidating than it’s always been, and you wish you could tell him how much it fucks with you. “Do you want to learn.”

Uh. What? “Uh,” you say intelligently.

“I mean. Not right now obviously.” He almost-smiles again. “Getcha in a heap of trouble with little Crocker, wouldn’t I? But when we get -” He presses his lips together, a moment, a century. “When we get home.”

“Oh.” You turn away, look down at the floor between your shoes. “I don’t um. I don’t know if my legs are strong enough to do that. Drive, I mean.”

“Sure seems like they’re strong enough to kick a crack in my shinbone,” he offers.

“Yeah, but that’s. Different.” You shrug.

“I don’t know about that,” Bro says around a sigh.

“What if I can’t -” _can’t do it._ What if you can’t do it.

And he does the unthinkable. He hands you back the pliers, but lets your knuckles bump lightly before he shies away. “Then I’ll be there. I won’t let anything happen.” He turns away and it’s like it never happened. “As if I’d let either of you destroy my truck, no matter how hard you try.”

“Fuck you,” you say immediately. “I wouldn’t be as shitty as him.”

He snorts loudly. “Sure, kid. I totally believe you.”

The wheel bolt makes a horrible groaning sound as he twists it, and you grimace, look away. Watch Jane and Dave a moment, him leaning against the car door and her perched on the hood. He says something, mouth curled into a crooked smile, and she laughs openly, a flash of teeth, shaking shoulders. You let your teeth grind down, ever so slightly.

You’re not jealous, it’s dumb for you to be. Dirk’s friends like you just as much, he’s assure you already, and you know Dave’s you, anyway, so there’s no reason to worry like you do. You’re being. Ridiculous. It’s ridiculous.

Bro must see, or maybe he doesn’t, you don’t know, you’re not looking, but he coughs quietly, arches an eyebrow over his shades. “You figure your shit out? With your little girlfriend.”

“She’s my ex,” you grunt.

“I know,” he says, but that just means he’s being shitty again and you’re not really in the mood.

You think of the way she smiled at you, how she held both your hands and said that it was okay to just be friends. You struggle against the way your voice catches in your throat. “Yeah. Yeah it’s. All good on the Strider front. And stuff.”

“Mm. And the Egbert kid?” He holds the wheel up. “You cool?”

You don’t know what he’d do if you said no. Can’t imagine, don’t really want to. “Uh. He just...” You are so tired of sighing, bonk your head back against the headrest a couple times. “He doesn’t mean it, when he’s an asshole. Most of the time, anyway. But it wasn’t like that. We’re cool. He just can’t control his.” You wave your hand around vaguely. “Windy powers. It’s all real fuckin’ tangible. The worst kind of powers, tbh. Unpredictable, leaves nothing to the imagination.” You pick at a string on your jeans. “Destructive, probably.”

“Probably,” Bro murmurs, and the two of you sit in silence for a beat. You wonder what he’s thinking. If he even understands aspects in relation to the Game. If he knows where that leaves him. You think of your heart(s?) beating in your _butnotyour_ ears, how it ached in your _butnotyour_ chest. Think of Dirk’s fingertips buzzing purple in his sleep. Probably best not to mention it. Just more shit on your plate you can’t deal with.

There’s a creak, a screeching sound, and a final click, and Bro lets out a noise dangerously close to a laugh. “There we are. Good as fucking new.”

You blink, look at the wheel, which he’s no turning into place. “Really? Just like that?”

“No,” he snarks, but he’s smiling. “But gimme a minute and I’ll have it.”

You give him a minute, and he does have it, and when he turns on the car and turns it around, Jane cheers, and Dave, forgetting himself a moment, joins her.

  
There’s a couple things you expected from the rink: ice, children, and cheesy, over the top pop music from the early to mid-nineties. You didn’t factor in that it’d be genuinely cold as fucking balls.

You sit on the bleachers ringside like a proud ice princess pageant mom with your hands shoved firmly in your pockets while your teeth chatter and you wish, desperately, that you had the foresight to bring a hoodie. John told you, bro. He warned you, dog. He said, _hey, it’s gonna be cold, dude._ Even Jade and Jake are borrowing sweaters. You’re a fool, Dave Strider. A damned fool.

The only person objectively worse than you is two sweater tyrant Dirk, and he’s not sharing. Asshole.

Jane is a better skater than Rose, to your genuine surprise. You guess she clocked more modern Earth time than all of you, in the end, and she oscillates between leading Jake or Dirk around the ring one by one for the better part of an hour until they get the hang of it.

There is something utterly amusing about watching them. Jane’s wild laughter ( _hoo hoo hoo!!_ ) as she swerves backwards on her skates, Dirk bent at the waist, trying to keep a hold on her hands while maintaining his cool (it’s not working, anyway, and you can see him grinning from here).

Roxy doesn’t need half as much help, and it only takes falling on her ass once before she’s up and on her way, following earnestly after Rose, much to her (and your) delight.

It’s all very good and wholesome, but your one (1) true bliss comes from the way all of them skate (literal) circles around Dave as he clings to the wall and swears. You make eye contact precisely once, and when you start to smirk, he flips you off and scoots along the wall more rapidly. You laugh. John offered to help him, you don’t know why he’s being so stubborn.

You don’t want to be jealous, especially after you told John it was cool, but you absolutely cannot handle the way your gut turns over when Roxy finally takes pity on Dave, taking his hand and begging Jane to help your poor... uh. Twin isn’t the right word, here. You guess you’re sort of twins now, in a way. Ugh. Gross.

“You could have told him no,” Rose says to your immediate left, and you nearly jump out of your fucking skin. Goddamn nosy broad and her spooky witchcraft bullshit.

“No, I couldn’ta,” you grunt, shoot her a glare. “You think I want to deny John his weird ectofamily portrait fantasy?” On cue, John and Jade pass in front of you, giggling and falling all over themselves as John wrestles to help her stay the fuck upright. “See that shit? Please, I’m an asshole, but I’m not cruel.”

“Hmm,” she hums, crosses her knees primly. She’s wearing a puffy blue coat that can’t have possibly fit John since he was thirteen, and that in conjunction with the rosy flush of her cheeks is a bizarre contrast to her personality, and you just barely stop from mentioning it to her. That’d be embarrassing. Also, she’d probably kill you.

“So, what,” you say, to change the subject before it begins, “come over here just to harass me? Should I take this as a compliment?”

“Hardly,” Rose retorts, though her gaze is level. “I came to check on you because you’re my brother and you looked lonely.”

Your gut twists and your fingers curl in your pockets. “I’m not.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

You both watch Dirk as he scoots alongside Dave and Jane, smiles encouragingly at him when he finally coaxes him away from the wall. Your mouth twists sour of its own accord.

This doesn’t escape Rose’s attention. “You seem...” She clucks her tongue softly, the way Dirk does when he’s thinking. “Jealous.”

That startles a laugh out of you, though it’s a fight against your own panic. “Why the fuck would I be jealous?”

“Dave has created an intimate relationship with a version of your brother unique to the two of them that you weren’t able to achieve. It’s okay to be upset.”

“Why would I be?” But it comes out a touch too mean. “He’s me.”

“Only when it’s convenient for both of you.”

You look at her then, and there’s nothing like amusement on her face. She looks disappointed, or unimpressed, or concerned, and you feel weird, maybe a little exposed. You have to turn away. “He can’t even skate, it’s not like I’m missing out on anything.”

“Oh, certainly the way you’re separated from your friends with a literal wall is healthy and not at all isolating,” she says with false cheer. “You’re right, I’m sorry for doubting you.”

“Fuck off, Rose,” you mutter, pull your hands out of your pockets to fold your arms over each other. You’re no less cold for it. “It’s not a big deal, I - Maybe I’m just not meant for that kind of shit. Dirk is - I dunno. He’s cool ‘n all, but we’re not...” You struggle for words, and when you can’t find them without admitting she’s right, you shut up.

Her hand is warm against the chilled skin of your arm. “It’s alright to be jealous, Dave.”

“As if I’d be jealous of them,” you snort, half-hearted. “Have you seen the two of them together? They’re ridiculous.” As if on cue, Dirk pauses to wrestle one of his sweaters off and hand it to Dave. “Jesus Christ.”

“You weren’t half as worried about this sort of conundrum at our tea party,” she ribs gently,  and you manage an uncomfortable wince.

Then it really clicks with you and a cold sort of dread floods over your from head to toe. “You. Remember that?”

“Hmm, I wonder,” she says, smile intentionally insouciant.

“That’s not fucking funny, Lalonde,” you all but snarl, and you don’t feel so at ease, nor any sort of positive emotion at all, all of it squashed beneath panic and a sick, sinking feeling in your gut.

“Oh, I quite thought we were having fun,” she says in a somewhat playful tone. You don’t return it and she sighs, drops it. “Didn’t you ever wonder? What happened to that Rose? Or Jaspers?”

“The cat?” You raise your eyebrows. “I mean, not fucking really. That’s like asking if I wondered what happened to the giant floppy clown doll Nanna was fused with. Or the dead bird. Why would I care about that?”

“Well,” she huffs, rolls her eyes again. “He’s fine, by the way. Mom was custom ordering him a tiny wheelchair when we left.”

“You just left him there? Alone in the house?”

She shrugs. “Mom wasn’t worried. She hired a sitter, I believe.”

You stare. “A sitter. For your cat.”

“Jaspers is a part of our family,” she says primly, but cracks another smile. “It’s Mom, what else would you expect?”

“I guess that’s fair.”

You lull into silence for a minute while you struggle with the idea that this Rose saw you as... Well you can’t call them your worst self. That’d be unfair to Nepeta. To a side of you that you’re retroactively ashamed of being.

“If it helps, I don’t think we would have worked out,” she offers after a beat, and you get so spooked you can’t stop the laugh until it’s halfway out your mouth.

“That’s a fucked up thing you just said, right there,” you say, fighting a smile. “But thanks, I guess.”

“Is it better or worse than when you used to make extremely inappropriate innuendo about our shared genetic mother?” she says, with a shark-like grin.

The smile drops off your face and you elbow her as hard as you can through her puffy coat. “Ugh, don’t fucking remind me.”

“You would never let me live it down if I made similar advances on our father,” Rose says, and you grimace. “But perish the fucking thought, Dave, because over one of, or perhaps all of my dead bodies.”

“You did die a couple times, huh,” you muse, try to think back over how many times you died. You kinda lost track after you stopped being a sprite, or at least stopped being Davesprite.

“Several more than was strictly necessary, I think,” she sighs, and you two are quiet again.

“Sorry you had to see me like that,” you say, for no reason other than the idea she saw you like that at all makes you want to crawl into a hole and die. “I never wanted - well. I don’t know what I wanted then. But I’m sorry.”

“I think it’s probably okay,” Rose says gently, and this time she takes your hand, wrestles your arms free of each other. “I don’t have all those memories, and I rather wish alcohol was not such a prominent part of it, but...” She laces your fingers together and you don’t tug away. “I remember being a sprite. The lift of a burden that, quite frankly, I think is just part of being _alive_ , Dave. It’s okay to be afraid of that. But we, especially, shouldn’t think of it like that anymore.”

“Like what?” you ask, and you feel small. Feel ashamed that you’ve been avoiding her for so long.

“Like living is a burden,” Rose whispers, and her eyes scrunch up at the corners, like Dirk’s, like yours.

John picks this exact time to smash his whole face and part of his upper body into the glass. “Hey, what are you losers talking about? How much better at ice skating I am? It’s okay to be jealous, I know I’m pretty much the best.”

You fight a smile, give a snort. “Please, Egbert, we all know Rose could wipe the floor with your sorry ass. You should be thanking me for taking her away so you can pretend to show off your quite honestly pathetic moves.”

“Oh fuck you, Dave,” he laughs, sticks out his tongue. Gross. Probably not sanitary.

“I think he’s right,” Rose purrs, standing and clunking down the metal bleachers on her skates. The sound sends an ache in your teeth and makes John look a little nervous. “But why don’t you show me your ‘moves’. I’m sure I could stand to learn a thing or two from the master.”

“Uh,” John says, stepping away from the gate as she pushes it open. “Yeah. Yeah, I will!”

“Doubt it,” Dirk monotones as he slides by, Jane on one arm, Dave (wobbling) on the other.

“Fucking Striders,” John moans, dropping his head back, and this time, you actually laugh.

(The next time around Jade gives you her sweater, and you don’t even try to play it off, just shove it over your head as fast as physically possible.)

 

  
“You’re sure you’ll be okay?” Rose asks, for the billionth fucking time as you wait in the airport. You wrestle with telling her to fuck off, but shes not technically talking to you, you think, and Dave just frowns at her behind his shades.

“I’m not a fucking baby,” he says, for the billionth time. “We can handle -” His gaze wanders across the way to where Bro and Mom stand, heads bent together, typing on their respective phones furiously. You have no fucking clue what’s going on there. You kinda don’t want to know.

“We can handle it,” you cut in, curving your wheelchair to face them a little better. You saw Jade and Jake off at the port this morning with Grandpa. You don’t think you’ll ever get over that ridiculous mustache. You’re going to have nightmares of giant musclebeasts with the faces of gentlemen for _weeks_. “Go back to New York and change Jaspers filthy fuckin’ litter box.”

“He had a kitty sitter,” Roxy says as she leans over Dirk’s shoulder. The two of them have been all but curled in the airport chairs with Jane for the past twenty minutes.

“I know,” you groan. “It was a shitty joke.”

“Or was it a  _shitty_ joke,” she says, wiggles her eyebrows.

“Boo,” Dirk monotones. He’s rubbing Jane’s back while she snuffles into his shoulder. You wish John were half as sentimental.

But he’s not, hands in his pockets and big smiles as he watches Rose and Dave trade barbs while you wait just beside the gate for your flight time to creep ever closer.

“But you’ll message us,” Rose presses, lips thinned. “If things get bad again -”

“Obviously,” Dave snaps, and you wish you could argue with either of them. You’re just excited to go home.

Rose chokes you with a hug that’s a little soggier than you want it to be, but you can’t even glare at her when Roxy and Jane both take over and you’re smushed between two fine ladies (reel it in, Strider, _Christ_ ), and they’re crying on your shoulders.

“Save some for me, huh,” John mutters as he pushes you free of them, and you don’t snap at him for it. When you’re safely out of range, he turns, bends down just a little. “So, uh. Pester me? When you get home, I mean. I already talked to Dave, I know he’ll be talkin’ my ear off the whole way but...”

You smile, really smile at him. “Yeah, man.” Your voice is soft, maybe a little wet. “Yeah, I will. I promise.”

“Good,” he says, and smashes his hand into your hair. “You owe me one.”

“Bull fucking shit,” you scoff. “If anything, you owe me plenty more than that. Who saved whose life here?”

“You cannot keep using that,” he laughs, but he follows beside you with a skip in his step, and helps carry your suitcase without complaint.

  
Bro sits beside you on the flight this time, follows you with the same evil eye to any staff member who even so much as looks your way, and this time you feel smug when you see Dirk and Dave squish in a few seats back, knowing your fine ass is going to be the first one on the ground when you land.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter than most chapter but we are!! Finally out of August!!!!  
> Thank you guys soooo sosososo much for sticking it out with me I can't put into words how much I adore you all!!!  
> ps i cannot rap i'm sorry


	26. sehnsucht

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirk versus his oldest nemesis: himself  
> We'll call him an unreliable narrator.  
> The Prince of Heart has a heart-to-heart about a stupid sword. It's kinda what he needs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im gonna be honest, I wrote this chapter for me. I'm sorry.  
> PS!!! Welcome back to Houston, everyone!  
> it's barely even gross this time! haha!

There is a list of things you are trying not to do anymore, and it is approximately miles in fucking length. Seriously. You could probably climb to the moon on your list of bad habits and bullshit, and you’re not even sure if you’d suffocate and die on the way there or not.

Being godtier sure does change your outlook on death.

Or maybe it would, if you were anyone but you.

But you’re not, so it doesn’t, and you won’t classify it as a fetish, because that’s an entirely different kind of list, but let’s just say you’ve got your hands full trying not to creep the absolute hell out of Dave.

And Jesus, there’s half your list in a word.

Dave, you mean.

Never in your life have you cared  _so_ deeply what another human being thought of you, and every time he cringes, every little grimace or groan or yelp of unparalleled fear?

It digs at you like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. It’s agony, how much you want him to like you. It’s painful, how much it burns when you can see that he’s afraid of you.

He’s not trying to be, Christ on a fucking cracker, he’s not, but there are moments in between your closeness that are cluttered with uncertainty and fear, and you hate it, and in turn hate yourself, and that’s not even the worst feeling you’ve ever had.

 

TG: have u tried sleeping WITHOUT a broken sword in ur strife deck???

It’s meant to be gentle teasing, you know, because she’s said it before, with both of you sitting in Jane’s room, squished together on the floor with your backs against the bed. But now you just feel kind of twisted up inside, maybe a little sick.

TT: I can’t. 

And it disgusts you, how much you mean it. It’s not to say that you’ve tried, because you haven’t, and it’s not as though you’d be defenseless without it. But the mere thought sends you spiraling into a loop of anxiety-riddled “what if” scenarios and subsequent self-loathing the likes of which no one, least of all your friends, needs be privy to.

TT: I’m completely aware of how preposterous it is, of course.  
TT: The kinds of dangers one might face in the twenty-first century pales drastically in comparison, by all accounts, to the way we lived in our youth.  
TT: Fuck, for an intruder to even make it to me or Dave they’d have to beat the first floor boss.  
TT: Who is, coincidentally, also the top floor boss.  
TT: Dude’s a fucking mess but I find the odds of his defeat, barring radiation-infused dogs, somewhat unlikely.  
TT: The probability of a death even counting as Just or Heroic in that instance is equally low.  
TG: this is getting a little out of hand i think lol  
TT: Well you know what they say when the bird flies outta your hand and back into the bush.  
TG: “holy fuck sum1 catch that damn bird!!” probs right  
TT: Probably.  
TT: I suppose it seems trivial to you, and perhaps a tad bit unnecessary?  
TG: lmao duh dirk  
TT: It’s just a feeling I get sometimes, Rox. I just can’t explain it.  
TT: If I don’t have it within reach I feel,  
TT: Well,  
TT: Naked, in a way.  
TG: all vulnerable like  
TT: Precisely.  
TG: dirk idk what to tell u!!  
TG: it kinda seems like u kno its all silly bs but u done gone n got urself a bunnified habit over there  
TG: (note the importance of the bunny pun at this time plz and thank u)  
TT: I am noting, appreciating, and completely disregarding it.  
TG: ok well rude but still  
TG: like i get it u know shit was super fucked and sometimes it still feels like one day ill wake up and itll all have been a dream n stuff  
TG: and rose will b gone and ill be alone again :((  
TG: and sometimes i think ye u know maybe id be more comfy sleepin w a gun strapped to my chest or whatever  
TG: but tbh its just not very reasonable :\  
TG: dont wanna hit rose in the face or nothing lmao  
TT: Didn’t you say Rose’s mom set you up your own room?  
TG: yus!! :3  
TG: theyre called sleepovers dirk get w the program  
TG: sheesh u think ud know all about that what w ur jumpy AF bunk buddy n all  
TG: also i cant stop thonkin  
TG: *thonkin lol  
TG: when my mom comes home shell want her own room back! and i dont want 2 make a big ol mess or nothing  
TT: Yeah, about that.  
TG: di stri the next words outta that big dumb brain butter not include “what if” or “im just sayin yo”  
TT: I was just going to mention,  
TG: ................................................... (lots o dots)  
TT: That maybe it’s a bit early for us to get our hopes up?  
TG: dirk thats literally the same thing  
TT: I guess so.  
TT: Forgive me for being skeptical about the idea of our guardian figures appearing at a completely unknown time after they’ve been missing for almost six months.  
TG: :((  
TG: you think jade was lying?  
TT: Sign.  
TG: !! <3  
TT: No, I wouldn’t say that. I don’t think Jade is the kind of person who lies about shit like that, especially not to Jake or Jane.  
TG: not that janeys notorious for not gettin her belief on about stuff like that or nothin lol  
TT: True.  
TT: But given how much her Poppop meant to hear, I’m inclined to imagine Jade isn’t lying.  
TT: Or at least she doesn’t think she is.  
TG: :\\\  
TG: that sounds like fakey fake paranoid bs 2 me but fine  
TG: u know who else might have a clue?? bein mr time guy and all?? ;))  
TT: Roxy, we already talked about this.  
TG: but we DINT talk about ur avoiding talking about ur fucked up swordy ninja bullshit!  
TT: Swordy?  
TG: sord...................y!!!  
TT: I told you, I just don’t want to upset him or freak him out anymore.  
TG: maybe u should try  
TG: oh i dunno  
TG: TALKIN 2 HIM ABT IT????  
TG: kinda seems like the logical step here  
TG: im no expert or nuthin but im js  
TT: I,  
TT: I don’t know.  
TG: why tf not??  
TG: rosie n i talk abt all sorts a stuff!  
TG: like  
TG: espesh when i do somethin that reminds her of her mom??  
TG: (bc duh i am her)  
TG: even tho logically we both know im not her it aint about that  
TG: we talk abt it!! and we figure out how to compromise on shit or w/e  
TG: jesus dirk u guys share a bed but u cant talk about ur fuckin feelings???  
TT: That’s.  
TT: Different.  
TG: u could just ask big dirk for like  
TG: an air mattress or smthn  
TG: if its bothering both of you so much!!  
TG: but ur not willin to part with your shit sword lol  
TT: It’s not.  
TT: I mean I hope it’s not. It’s crowded, for sure.  
TT: He’s a little clingy, maybe.  
TT: But I don’t mind.  
TG: okay good so maybe u can....  
TT: I can’t.  
TG: have u at least like............  
TT: No.  
TT: And that’s none of your business.  
TG: what!!  
TG: why not??  
TT: Because shut up.  
TT: Shut up is why.  
TG: ok now ur just being extra cagey on purpose cuz u know im rite  
TT: Right or wrong is wholly fuckin’ subjective here.  
TT: My problem remains and I have yet to find a solution.  
TG: :\  
TG: there is 1 fuckin solution and ur ignoring it!!  
TG: r u ready for the big reveal?  
TG: wait for it...............  
TT: Roxy.  
TG: u gotta..............  
TG: ......................................  
TG: (o fuck those ellipses r gettin away....).......................  
TT: This is stupid.  
TG: stfu ur stupid!!1!1!!  
TG: ................. u gotta.......................  
TG: TALK TO HIM DIRK!!!!!!!  
TT: But,

tipsyGnostalgic [TG] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT]

TT: Dammit.

Part of the problem is that you don’t know how to talk to him about this.

The thing is, your relationship has been skewed towards something nearing on one-sided venting, and you don’t want to unload on him unprompted. That’d be hells of disastrous, there’s little doubt in your mind. Your position as Not-Bro is tenuous at best, as far as you’re concerned, and while the solid evidence is certainly there, Roxy is right.

Logically, it doesn’t make a difference.

Because technically (duh), you  _are_ Bro.

And he’s you.

The two of you clowns have enough issues between you to keep an army of therapists tripping over verbal and quite literally phalluses (fuck yes dick pun) for decades, and that’s almost shameful enough on its own to warrant never speaking to Dave about anything, ever again.

He is, however (near tragically), impossible for you to avoid.

  
  
Dave sleeps on the inside edge of the bed with his face practically crushed against the wall and you stare at the back of his head and think about.

Well. Everything.

You never really stop thinking about anything, once you start. How can you solve this, how can you tweak that, how can you repair a relationship you just began when it’s been irreparably broken by a version of yourself you barely even know? It’s kind of a shitty habit. Definitely a bad one.

It’s been three days since you got home from Washington and you’ve fallen back into your old routines seamlessly. You dick around on your various computers, surreptitiously pester Roxy about your bullshit, and try not to fall deep enough asleep that any sudden movements trigger your itchy lil strifin’ fingers (it only happened once during your stay up north, but it was more than enough - Dave’s yelp, the perfect O of Jake’s mouth as he froze in the middle of the room, hand outstretched towards the doorknob. You never wanted anyone else to see you like that).

You can’t say you’re frustrated with him, because that wouldn’t be fair, and you’re man enough (laughable, really) to admit when you’re in the wrong (sometimes). But it is exhausting, at times, carving out these little chunks of yourself that so perfectly mirror your counterpart.

Dave insists it  _doesn't_ bother him, of course, which is another part of the problem; you very much doubt even Rose is this hard to deal with when it comes to matters of. Well. You don’t really know what to call it.

Transdimensional bad habits that are apparently fucking incurable, you guess.

You cannot possibly restore your 1/2 bladekind to its former glory like this, with your propensity for half-asleep death threats and jumpy AF bunk buddies.

God, you wish you could fucking talk to him about this.

You’re not mad at him, you don’t think, or you hope you’re not. It’s irrational, anyway, He didn’t mean to keep it from you. Your Bro. Roxy’s Mom. Jade’s somewhat equivocal prediction.

There’s a chance, you reckon, that it’s wrong. That she’s wrong.

Your stomach turns and you close your eyes, try not to think about the way they water, tell yourself you’re just tired again, perfectly normal, just human shit, nothin’ to see here.

What’s the use of being a god if you can’t skip a few days of sleep here and there?

Lame ass shit.

So it’s been three days, you’re tired, a little paranoid, and you’re beginning to think you seriously need a chill pill. Like fuck, you made it kid, you rode a GOTDAM plane. _Twice_. Didn’t even make a big deal about it the second time, played it so fucking cool you only  _almost_ ripped Dave’s hand off during landing. You probably won’t even have to leave the house again for the next three weeks, if you don’t want to (and you don’t, not really). You’re home, you’re in your bed, and no one is in immediate danger of dying (at least not any time soon).

And Christ, you had almost forgotten about that, in the same way you could never fucking forget that nightmare (like shattered glass, mirror shards, pink and red and firelight orange repeating over and over and)

On the list of things that could potentially terrify Dave, there is a line somewhere near the top (wedged between “puppets” and “pulling sword on people while partially comatose”) that probably just reads “talking about fucked up soul prince powers”. You guess they’d be kinda cool, if you knew literally anything about them and what they did, and if the mere thought of that crumbling hole in Bro’s chest didn’t make your throat close up, didn’t make you think about pixelated chunks of planetary matter, grasped in your hands, crawling through your lungs, consuming you from the outside in, like a virus, like a 

Well. It never happened, anyway, so it probably doesn’t matter.

You think your list might just be growing the more you dwell on it, so you roll away, press your shoulders back against his, and squeeze your eyes closed shut and hope, hope (Hope?) you’ll fall the fuck asleep.

  
  
You should have known better than to ask Jane - you  _definitely_ know better than to ask Jake. But while you desperately love your friend, she’s not exactly someone who tells you want you want to hear.

At least.

Not anymore.

It’s almost worse that she’s gutsy enough a fucking gumshoe to figure you out almost immediately.

GG: Wait.  
GG: Is this about that silly half-sword you’re carrying around in your specibus while you sleep?  
TT: Damn.  
TT: May I ask how in the absolute FUCK you already know about that?  
GG: Hm, I’m not sure I should say! I don’t want you to be mad at anyone!  
TT: Was it Roxy?  
GG: It was most certainly not >:B  
GG: John told me!  
TT: Well fuck. That’s embarrassing.

You drag a hand down your face, show it up under your shades to bonk your head against the wall. Well. Cat’s outta the bag. May as well tell her the whole story.

Or at least the parts that matter. And aren’t as fucking embarrassing.

She takes it better than you expect. Not so much as a wink or wonk or anything but a kind ear and a general unwillingness to bend to your desperate wish for someone to agree with you.

GG: I don’t know what to tell you, Dirk!  
GG: I think talking about things that bother you is the first step to any good relationship. It certainly patched things up between my dad and I when we’d get into an altercation!  
GG: But I also kind of feel like talking is all you and Dave ever do, if I’m being honest :B  
TT: Haha. You’re probably right.  
GG: Truthfully, I don’t really know Dave that well!  
GG: At least, not as well as you, or even his friends might. Not to say we are not also becoming better friends, which is swell as all get out!  
TT: Jane.  
TT: That’s adorable.  
GG: <3!!  
GG: Dirk, have you considered talking to Rose?  
TT: Why the fuck would I do that.  
TT: I mean, in regards to the current subject.  
TT: The subject being Dave.  
TT: If he found out, he’d fucking kill me. Again.  
GG: Don’t give me that sass, mister!!!!  
GG: John and I have a relatively easy time, navigating the ins and outs of our interactions, due to the separation both of us had from our mutual counterparts.  
GG: And perhaps in the similarities between our fathers, we found an understanding!  
GG: I am trying to say we did not grow up with versions of ourselves, of course.  
TT: I got that.  
GG: Roxy and Rose no doubt deal with similar quandaries on a daily basis! If you can’t talk to Roxy about it, I don’t see why Rose would be too far a stretch!  
GG: And she’s quite funny and charming, much like yourself :B I think you’d get along better than you imagine.

  
  
You don’t completely buy it, but you can’t really deny it, either. It’s probably about time you and Rose had a conversation that went beyond the vague needling questions about your hobbies and growing up alone.

On second thought, this really seems like it’ll lead to further needling about your childhood and relationship with Dave, which you’re not feeling terribly amenable to an impromptu therapy session right fucking now.  
  
“I wouldn’t ask Rose,” DS says immediately, when you mention it in passing. “And it doesn’t really bother me that much, if you were wondering,” he adds, glancing sideways at you.

You were. “Alright,” you say, keep your face neutral. Dave is not particularly good at Mariokart but DS is notorious for exploiting glitches in the game (you’re unsure if this is a symptom of his spritehood or a benefit, at this point). If you look away for a second, or even give him a hint that you’re gonna shell his ass, he’ll pull out some kind of nightmare trick and fuck you and every NPC six ways to Sunday.

“I guess it’s prolly cuz I don’t sleep six inches from your face,” he says, but there’s a shitty little smirk curling on his face. You can see his stupid ugly Toad kart coming up behind you on the screen and you do NOT appreciate it. “I don’t have the benefit of repeated experience scarring me. And Bro sleeps like the dead, these days.” He grimaces, shrugs. “Honestly, that’s probably for the best. I don’t think post-sprite powers include any second lives.”

“I don’t really want to find out,” you assure him, and you can’t quite stop yourself from cursing loudly he curves tighter around the corner than you and wins by less than a second. “Mother _fucker_ ,” you groan.

He just laughs.

  
  
“I don’t want to do this,” he groans two days later, simply, crankily, holding a no. 2 pencil in his left hand and an absolutely monstrous calculator in the other.

“Too fuckin’ bad,” Bro says, and the pencil in HIS hand rolls between his fingers in a distracting manner, tapping out a rhythm (1-2-3, 1-2-3) on the coffee table they’re both hunched in front of.

“Did we really spend this much time working on math before the Game?” Dave asks, voice muffled by the textbook lying open over his face. He’s sprawled out in front of the television and you watch, amused, from your corner on the futon, just far enough away that if you curl into the wood of the arm, you and Bro won’t touch.

“I told you I’d help, if you wanted,” you tell them, though honestly? It’s not that interesting. High school math is kinda beneath you, at this point, and you’re not all that keen on doing repetitive homework assignments for little to no reward. But you like the both of them enough to offer, and you still don’t officially exist, which is depressing, so it’s not like you’ve got anything better to do. 

“No,” Bro says sternly, but he’s chewing on the eraser now, reading his own book over the rim of his shades.

“Probably be all boring and whatever for you, anyway, man,” Dave says. He lifts his head so you can see his face peeking up over the edge of the book. “It’s fuckin’ baby stuff, compared to what you can do.”

“It’s not baby stuff,” Bro says. If you didn’t know better, you’d imagine his voice errs on the side of gentle. “Ain’t no kid of mine walking around with a middle school reading level and no diploma. Gods still have to go to college. Now do your fucking work.” He cranes his head back to look at you and you carefully do not scowl. “Listen,” and he still hesitates there, every time, still won’t say your name, as if you’ll forget that night in Washington, as if you’ll forget - it doesn’t matter. “If you’re seriously bored here -” you expect very much for him to tell you to go fuck yourself, leave them alone and stop distracting Dave and DS. “I probably have a college-level textbook layin’ around somewhere. If you wanted to take a look at it.”

Oh.

Uh.

You blink, open your mouth, blink again.

You have no idea what to say to that. “I’m not sure -”

“Bro, he doesn’t wanna do fake homework in solidarity,” DS says, but he sounds dangerously close to laughter. He seems better since you got home, maybe a little higher in spirits and leaps and bounds less jumpy.

Bro just grunts and shrugs, but he turns away before you can reply, and by then it’s too late.

You’re curious, though, what he could have possibly gone to school for.

He’s certainly not using it now.

You suppose he knew enough to fix cars, and Dave has mentioned (somewhat hysterically) that he was in a robotics club. Not enough technology to go anywhere with it back then, you know, but very little else. You wonder what kind of shit he’s got hiding wherever he keeps... well you don’t know. Wherever adults keep their past shit when it’s not on display. The crawlspace, maybe.

(Yours was filled with shit you didn’t need til you were old enough to reach, and you don’t even remember what the exact contents were, or are, or will be, or won’t be, not anymore.)

  
Dave is still hung up on it, hours later.

You lie on the bed, absently scrolling forums while he.

Okay, there’s no other word for it. He’s pacing. It’s kind of endearing.

“You know I still don’t fuckin’ know where he keeps his clothes?” he’s saying, and you’ve learned you don’t need more than a hum or a soft sound of reply to keep him going. “Fuck, dude, last time I asked him about his  _shirt_  and it was like pulling teeth trying to get him to tell me anything at all!” He throws up his hands in your peripherals. “I don’t know why he’s so hellbent on being mysterious, anyway. The jig is up, dawg, hands in the air, you are under fucking arrest. For something. Shit, probably a fuck ton, haha.”

Dave has a tendency to talk to himself, more than anyone specific, a lonely sort of habit he either inherited from you, or learned somewhere along the way. Could be a somewhat depressing side-effect of a stalwartly silent guardian, you reckon. You don’t particularly mind it, anyway, even if you’re not really focusing on what he’s saying.

It usually takes him longer to notice, but today he launches himself onto you and the bed, flopping across your legs with a “hey man are you listening?”, and you wince to pull your hand away from your strife deck, a hair trigger response you can’t quite stop in time.

“Sorry,” he says meekly, and it just kills you inside to see him like that, the way he rolls off you, shies away until he’s all but curled at the foot of the bed.

Fuck, at least when you do deploy your blade (Jesus, phrasing), he curses loudly and jumps away. You can both pretend it’s like a pathetically funny joke. He maybe gets a little rant going, keeps on verbally marching along until he changes the subject.

Now he just looks.

Nothing.

His expression is blank, his posture cool.

You hate it.

“No, I -”

Tell him.

Talk to him, Dirk.

Do it.

C’mon, don’t be a fucking infant.

Do it.

What else do you have to lose?

_Everything._

“No,” you say around a sigh, and you pull back away from him further, don’t watch the way he winces, push yourself upright. “Dude, shit,  _I'm_ fucking sorry.” You wriggle until your ass is perched on the outside edge of the bed, elbow digging into the bedside table, and pat the empty space beside you.

You can physically see him hesitate, the way he opens his mouth, closes it, presses his lips together in a thin line. You can’t see his eyes, but you’re used to that, don’t worry, try not to stare directly at him because you know he doesn’t like it (you don’t like it, either, but you’re getting used to it as time goes on, or you’re trying to).

Eventually you can’t really stop the sigh, and you give the bed a firmer pat. “C’mon, dude, just let me fuckin’ apologize to you, afterschool special style, so we can get back to our day and you can finish your homework before Bro finds out you’ve been slacking.”

“He doesn’t usually care if it’s a little late,” is all he says, but he gingerly crawls up next to you and presses his back into the corner where the two walls meet. It’s kind of hilarious, watching him fold his limbs close to his body, and his toes just barely touch the edge of your knees. It’s an improvement, you guess.

There’s not a good way for you to do this, not really, because no matter what, it involves you and swords and it’s a subject you both avoid pretty well, all things considered.

“What the fuck kind of teacher lets you turn your homework in late for full credit? I have seen about a metric fuckton of twenty-first century movies that tell me that’s hells of irresponsible,” you say, but you’re smiling, can imagine exactly how hard it is to say no to this asshole. But you don’t know. Bro could be strict about that kind of thing. You don’t think you’d give a shit, though. It’s Dave.

“Honestly I’ve never actually seen the program specs, but I’m pretty sure it’s just gotta be in before midnight,” he shrugs. “He usually checks my work first, though. You’re lookin’ at a motherfucker who ain’t never got anything less than ninety-goddamn-six on a test, okay, I’m the shit at math.” He pauses, thinks about that. “I want to say that factored into the whole business with the LOHACSE but between you and me? Those gators were fucking idiots.”

“I’m pretty sure they were technically crocodiles,” you say, and when he kicks you lightly, you let out a breathy laugh. “Listen, Dave -”

“Is this gonna be another heart-to-heart?” he blurts, and you try very hard not to shove him. “Cuz I don’t know if we’re allotted more than one of those per month. Sure you wanna burn that token now?”

You don’t correct his malaphor, but you can’t stop the smile making its way across your face. “I reckon if we find ourselves needing a second one, we can always file a request with the home office, pay that premium overnight shipping, expedite the fuck out of that extra heart-to-heart.”

“What if the office is closed and it’s late on a Saturday?” he asks. “That shit’ll sit there til Monday, and who knows what in god’s name will have transpired by then.”

“We’ll have to build that bridge when we get to it,” you say, and the two of you could do this all day, you  could, but you’d rather not prolong this feeling of anxiety and tension that’s building up in your gut. “Look,” and this time he doesn’t interrupt you, and you trip over yourself because you don’t know what comes after.

You settle on probably the worst possible move, and summon your sword. It’s been a few days since you’ve done more than reach for it, and it’s familiar in your hand, even at half-size. the cut is clean, the edge still sharp as anything. Your heart aches to see it broken.

“I didn’t always sleep with it,” you start, and it feels dumb, holding it like this, so you rest it in your lap, facing away from Dave. He’s gone completely still, you’re not even sure he’s breathing. Ugh. “It used to sit on my desk, not even next to my fucking bed. Which is laughable, considering I think I was in greater danger my entire life in that fucking apartment than perhaps any time spent in the Game. Except the end, anyway,” you add, and the two of you share a private, kinda fucked up joke in the quiet of your bedroom.

“I can’t promise I can let it go,” you say, and it sounds stupid. It’s not a grudge. It’s just - It’s just an object. “I don’t know if I ever will, but I can -” You bite your lip, push forward. You cannot keep doing this. “I can try. Harder.”

“You don’t have to do this all the time,” Dave says, smile sweet, a little crooked. He looks uncomfortable, and you push down at the guilt choking you. “Adjust yourself for my comfort or whatever. Any dude would be scared if someone pulled a sword on them, Dirk, it’s not -”

“But it is,” you say, and this time you push over his protests. “Before we left for Maple Valley you told me it was okay to ask for help, and I said I’d try. And I  _haven't_ been trying, not really, and that’s fucked up.” You hesitate, try not to grind your teeth, and then you pick up your katana and offer it to him. “I fucked up. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to make it up to you.”

“You don’t  _have_ to,” he says, and there’s an edge of exasperation to his words. You can tell he doesn’t want your fucking sword, probably wants nothing to do with the damn thing, but in the end he takes it from you, thumb grazing your knuckles as it changes hands. “We don’t live in a soap opera, bro. We’re just two dudes, navigating this labyrinth called friendship.” He tips it up towards the light, follows the reflection of his hand on the surface. “It’s not as heavy. As I remembered, I mean.”

“It’s broken, Dave,” you remind him gently, and he huffs, kicks you in the knee. You snicker.

“I fucking know that, douchenozzle!” That’s not what he meant and you both know it.

Your face aches at the corners from smiling. “It was left here. For - for me, I suppose. Or have always kind of thought, I guess.” You wonder if you should feel more, watching him now. Dave Strider, holding the (broken) unbreakable katana. You mostly feel fond, maybe a little warm inside. “I don’t know if it actually belonged to my bro, or if I always imagined it did because it made me feel better, and a little less lonely. Maybe it  _is_ just a legendary piece of shit, I don’t know.”

“Mm, I don’t know,” he murmurs, running his thumb along the edge of the guard. “Bro’s been using it as long as I can remember. It’s the first sword I ever held, you know.”

That. Surprises you. “Really?”

“Haha, yeah. Back when I was six. I was having a lot of bad dreams back then. About uh. Cal. And stuff. I begged him to let me learn. Shoulda known better.” He brandishes it, smiles softly. “I was too small. It was heavy as shit and I fuckin’  _dropped_ it. Sliced a hole right through the carpet. Bro laughed.” His smile falters. “I think. Or maybe I just tell myself that because the truth was probably way more depressing, I don’t know.”

You grimace. “Dave...”

Shrug. “It’s cool. Not all of it was bad, I told you before. I think maybe I just don’t want to strife again for awhile. Or um.” He drops his gaze, peeks at you just over the rim of his shades. “Maybe ever?”

“I get it,” you say, keep your voice low, even. “I mean to be honest I think we both saw enough action at the end there to last a lifetime but. I don’t know.” You can’t quite hide a self-deprecating smile. “I’ve always kinda liked swords, and I wouldn’t mind getting some practice in, now and again.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he mumbles, leans across you to put the sword on the table. His godtier shirt is soft on your cheek, and you wonder if it’d be dumb to sleep in just your hero shirt. “But not before you get it fucking fixed. I could probably reverse it, if you wanted. Maybe. I had to do that a couple’a times in-game.”

You think about it and wonder, for a moment, if Time shit is easier to deal with, or if the three years practice he has on you just makes that much of a difference.

Maybe it’s all about your nature, when it comes down to it.

Your stomach turns over like the engine of an old car.

“No,” you say, but you smile again, tap your head against his lightly. “I can take care of it. Or,” you add quickly, watching his mouth turn down, “I’ll try to, and when I inevitably live up to my title and make it worse, I’ll come crawling back. How’s that sound?”

“It sounds like some worrying ass shit, if I’m bein’ honest here, Dirk,” he says, and you see the way he gnaws on the inside of his cheek. “But I’m gonna go ahead and trust you, cuz you told me about the sword thing, and because I - uh.” He coughs, looks down. “You know.”

You would not classify Dave as a shy person, not by a long shot, but there is something gentle, bordering on tender, in the crooked slant of his smile.

“I know,” you say, coloring uselessly. “Me, uh. Me too.”

Absolutely pathetic, both of you.

“If you ever did, uh. Like, hurt me?” Dave says after a beat, and you raise an eyebrow in question. “On accident or something? I wouldn’t like, hate you or anything. I can tell that’s what’s really freaking you out, here.”

“Dave, Christ, that’s not what I want to hear.” You pinch the bridge of your nose, and you know it reminds him of Bro, you know, but fuck, you did a really bad job, here.

“Yeah, I know,” he says, shrugs. He picks at a loose thread on your jeans. “I’m just sayin’. Sword accidents happen, bro. S’part of the Strider experience, and until you’re comfortable, shit, man, I’m not gonna pretend like I don’t know it’s there or something. That’s just as much on me as it is on you.”

“Okay,” you murmur. “For the record, I don’t want to cut your head off in like, retaliation or anything. That’s not really what I’m angling for, here.”

That makes him laugh. “I don’t know if I’m ready to experience death for shits and giggles yet, either, but trust me, if I ever am, you’ll be the first guy to know.”

“The offer is still on the table, you know,” you say, and it’s a little disgusting, the thrill that rises in your chest when you think about it. “No fucking pressure, though.”

Dave’s expression says as much, but it quickly dissolves into a grin. “You are a really fucked up dude, you know that?”

“Yeah,” you say, bumping your knuckles together, “I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol jazz hands we are creeping up on what I guess could be considered an act two of sorts! Or three? Oh who knows! Anyway thank you guys for all your patience this month I've been all over the place <3


	27. time's arrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave drags us through September at lightning speed, to the beat of a ticking clock no one but him can hear. Poor bastard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!!! Welcome back!! Sorry in advance for uhhhh. Whatever this is.  
> CW for mentions of like, standard story yuck stuff, nothing we haven't seen before. Probably not as friendly as last chapter!

September passes in increments of time no one but you probably bothers to measure. Things at home are quiet, and honestly you just feel kind of weird, sleeping in your bed with Dirk and knowing you won’t see Mom or Rose or Roxy again in the morning.

So sue you, you’ve gotten a little emotionally attached. Ain’t nothing wrong with loving your friends (and mom) and missing them, especially when those friends are kinda sorta your family now.

Not that you’d like.

 _Tell_  them that, though. Lalonde women be hells of inscrutable, man. You’re not looking for something Rose can hold over your head for the rest of your life. Who even knows how long  _that_ will fucking be.

Doesn’t stop you from pestering everyone 24/7.

TG: heres what i dont get right  
TG: so we build a universe we step through the door and  
TG: what  
TG: we dont get the ultimate prize??  
TG: did we do something wrong  
TG: is it a glitch in the system  
TG: just another fuck you from paradox space because  
TG: man idk  
TG: you fucked up shit irreparably or whatever  
TG: warned you not to mess with the timeline bro  
EB: you warned me dog?  
TG: i warned you oh  
TG: hey john  
EB: *SIGH*  
EB: hi, dave.  
TG: hey man been iming you all fucking morning where have you been  
TG: sleeping or some shit what kind of hero of earth are you  
EB: okay, well first of all i know you absolutely have NOT been, because i can still see the beginning of the chat from here and it is not even that long!  
EB: secondly no, i was doing my homework! school started last monday, duh.  
TG: yeah i know that  
TG: i may not go to public school like some chumps i know but we still got school here in texas  
TG: class in session professor bro is in the HOUSE  
TG: today were learning how to do sick stunts with your four-wheeled device and a balcony rail  
EB: how does that even work? does he actually have a teaching certificate or whatever?  
TG: i dont fucking know dude i mean hes smart or whatever hes got the same brains as dirk remember  
TG: unless that shit like  
TG: idk  
TG: turned to mush and leaked out his ears along with the whole cal thing but tbh he seems like he knows his shit a la mathematics  
EB: oh yes, dave, we are all super impressed by your two smart bros and their big brains. *ROLLS EYES*  
EB: but that reminds me, there’s something i forgot to tell you!  
EB: jeez sorry, all this new stuff is seriously kicking my ass, haha.  
TG: wow pulling a jade on me now huh guess you two really are related.  
EB: shut up, dave!! i’m trying to tell you, god.  
EB: i’m homeschooling with jane now.  
TG: whoa what why  
EB: it just felt like the right thing to do, i guess.  
EB: the subjects are a lot harder now and jane can help me catch up.  
EB: and also....  
EB: if i’m being honest, it just feels weird? being back home like everything hasn’t changed.  
TG: yeah no kidding  
TG: i mean kickass time powers aside shit has been fucked sideways since we got back idk how im even handling that piping hot garbage right now  
EB: well from what dave’s said and i’ve seen i’d say not very well :B  
TG: wow egbert that is hells of rude coming from a dude with windy powers and literally no self control  
EB: oh man i am laughing so hard at this SICK burn, i cannot believe how badly i have been burned just now.  
EB: i keep telling you, it’s just different now, STRIDER!!  
EB: like i’m pretty sure i hit peak god tier during that final battle, but nothing here works the same as it did in the game. it’s weird!  
TG: weird is definitely a word for it  
TG: fucked beyond all measure is another  
EB: or several, haha.  
TG: ha yeah  
TG: doesnt really feel like this world is set up to worship us as gods or some bullshit  
TG: at least i havent seen any temples or gotten any sacrifices or nothing  
TG: unless youve been holding out on us egbert  
EB: i don’t know about that.  
TG: wtf does that mean  
EB: it means i don’t know, dave!  
EB: about us being actual gods or this being like, the final world?  
EB: our world, i mean. that we created!  
TG: k john i think ive really lost track of what were talking about here  
EB: well okay it’s just,  
EB: this was always one of our wishes, right?  
TG: what  
EB: to save our planet! to save earth :(  
TG: oh  
TG: uh yeah i guess i mean we all kind of assumed that at the start right  
TG: but the trolls said thats not how it worked  
TG: so what we created a paradox and were all fucking doomed is that what youre saying  
EB: well, maybe!  
TG: not inspiring confidence here john  
EB: unless....  
TG: unless  
EB: unless it’s not OUR earth? does that make sense?  
TG: not a goddamn lick dude  
EB: bluh bluh you’re being obtuse on purpose because you’re so cool bluh bluh.  
TG: you knock those human bluhs off right this instant i aint your hate crush this is some serious shit  
TG: youre talking doomed timeline biz  
TG: aka the exact biz of yours truly  
EB: i think it’s more dave’s, than yours. but it doesn’t really matter!  
EB: i am honestly just repeating a light theory, here.  
TG: let me guess  
TG: jade  
EB: haha, duuuuhhhh.  
EB: i just think, well, she hasn’t been wrong so far!  
TG: so this isnt our earth then whose is it  
EB: i don’t really think i should have to tell you!  
EB: but because i am so magnanimous and cool, i will!  
TG: nope too late i figured it out and dont need you anymore im just going to ask jade  
TG: later dude

turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB]

EB: striiiiiiiiiderrrrrr!!!!!!!!

And maybe you will ask Jade about it, but probably not. It’s not that you’re not curious about the theory, it’s just that it brings you back around to Dirk’s missing bro, Jade’s vague prediction, and the uncertainty of what your future holds. So it’s not that you don’t want to know, it’s just. Okay, you kinda don’t want to know. Classic Time player stuff, they just don’t get it. And stuff.

  
Your second week of September is spent lying on the floor in the living room waiting for the heat to break.

“I’m dying,” you say, to no one, to all of them.

“Join the club,” Dirk groans, from somewhere to your left. He’s lying on the linoleum in the kitchen, and when you tried to scoot over to him, he kicked you away. Selfish bastard.

“Didn’t you live in the middle of the ocean? Did it still get hot like this?” Dave asks. He’s hanging half off the futon, just out of your reach but still directly in line with the fan as it pauses its oscillating for a merciful 3.5 seconds to cool the secondary layer of sweat on your skin.

You’re kind of disgusting, and not in a pubescent nasty way. At least you hope not. Karkat was probably right, you fucking reeked for, what? Two outta three years at  _least_. Terezi never fuckin’ complained about it, anyway.

Haha.

God, you miss them sometimes. (A lot of the time.)

“Hard to compare, I think,” Dirk sighs, and you adjust yourself to look at him, lying on his back with his hands folded on his stomach. He abandoned his shirt an hour ago and you follow the curve of a scar that marches its way up over his shoulder and behind his neck. “Nights were cooler, I guess. With the breeze off the water ‘n all. Everything else is just...” He raises a hand and kind of waves it in the air. “Statistics. I hardly had a means of keeping track. In his infinite wisdom, my Bro did not think to include a thermometer for my use.”

“You didn’t hate that?” you blurt, foolishly. “Not knowing.”

He lulls his head towards you, and shadeless, there is something bordering on sweet to his smile. “No. There’s a lot of things I resent about my childhood and concurrent isolation, but forgetting to pack a thermometer is the least of my concerns.”

And it’s stupid, for you to feel guilty about that. For you you to feel even the tiniest bit bad about something as insignificant and completely out of your control, but you do. He has that effect on you, Dirk. You’re kind of learning to live with it.

“Oh,” you say. Then, “Sorry.”

He lets out a little snort and rolls away from you, instead of looping you both into a constant stream of apologizing to one another. You’re getting better at that. Gold stars all around.

Instead you flail an arm up onto the futon until you hit Bro on the leg. He hums acknowledgment, which you figure is more than enough to proceed with your terrible plan. “Hey. Fix the AC.”

He shakes you off half-heartedly. You assume whole-hearted would involve something like a foot to the teeth, or you being tossed off something. You don’t know. “Fuck you,” he rasps, and his voice sticks in this throat, tired and thirsty like the rest of you. “Go study or some shit. You got a test due on Monday. Or whatever.”

You absolutely do not. He’s full of shit and you both know it. “No way, man,” you say, slap at him petulantly. “It’s too hot for that, I can’t possibly concentrate in these conditions. My focus is solely on not melting through the fucking floor. Seriously, my brains are gonna start leaking out my ears. Gonna leave a pretty nasty stain on the carpet. Probably take weeks to get that shit out, and on top of it you’ll be down one Dave. How depressing would that be?”

“I resent that,” Dave monotones, voice muffled into the mattress. He gathers up the energy and flips you off, on top of it.

You almost tell him you’re proud, he’s braver than any U.S. marine, expending energy like that, but instead you ignore him, batting at the futon insistently. “C’mon, Bro. You’re mister mechanical genius, I don’t see why you can’t get your ass up onto the roof to like. Do whatever. Fix it? Show it who’s boss? Why is it even broken again, how much do you pay for this shithole, anyway?”

He sighs out his nose and drags both legs over the side of the couch til his feet hit the floor, almost kicks you in the head. You stubbornly slap at him. You will not be deterred that easily. “Dude, seriously. Seriously. Bro. Bro c’mon, please? I’m fucking dying here.”

“For the record,” he says as he climbs to his feet, and you think you do a great job not flinching away when his hand almost touches yours on his knee, “I’m not doing this for you."

“Fuck you,” you say weakly, don’t move when he steps over you and walks over to pull on the crawlspace cord. He’s been doing that a lot lately.

Walking, you mean. Instead of flashstepping.

Instead of a lot of things, really.

For a dude who claims not to do shit for you, he sure does...  _do_ shit. For you.

Sometimes.

“What are you doing?” you ask, and he pauses a beat, completely blank, just for a second. You hate it when he does that. It throws you for a fucking loop.

“I look magic to you, brat?” He snorts. “Need my tools.” And he hops up, grabs the rim of the opening, and hoists himself up in one fluid motion. It’s almost more disturbing when you can actually see him do it. Maybe you prefer the flashstep, after all.

You roll onto your stomach, wince as your shirt bunches up and you hit warmed carpet. Ugh. Summer can be fucking over any goddamn day now. This shit is getting ridiculous.

You haven’t been young enough to lift like a football since you were thirteen easy, so needless to say when you find yourself hoisted very suddenly, you let out a noise more akin to a shriek than a yelp. “What the FUCK -” is all you manage, and then you are, in a single blink, dropped into the shade of some smelly ass melting gravel.

You groan, scrambling for purchase and settling for flipping onto your back so you can glare at Bro, who’s hunched beside you, already elbow deep in wires with a shitty little grin on his stupid fucking face.

“What the fuck,” you repeat, just in case he missed it the first time.

“You wanted me to fix the AC,” he says lightly, pulling a full bundle of wires out in a tangle. “Figured you wouldn’t mind volunteering to play assistant for the day.”

You grunt, push yourself upright. “You’re an ass. We both know there’s nothing up here for me to do, and you just wanted an excuse to be shitty for fun.” You wipe your hands on your pants. The roof isn’t fun to land on, but you’re not actually hurt.

“Maybe,” he says, but he’s distracted, starts to wrap some of the cording around his arm until it’s neatly spooled.

You watch for a few minutes. You realized right away that your phone is still downstairs on the floor, and you have no way of accessing it right now, and absconding the situation isn’t on your top priorities. Bro is kinda shitty, and it’s hot, of course, but he’s not actually doing anything right now, so you may as well

You can hardly say “enjoy” it.

Tolerate, maybe.

It startles the absolute fuck out of you when he talks first. “So.” You see his mouth twitch down when you full-body flinch, and you struggle very hard not to look guilty. Fuck him, you’re well within your rights.

You knew Bro for thirteen years of your life, and you have recently known him for five months more (days hours minutes run through the back of your mind like the tick of a clock that you can almost block out, if you ignore it hard enough), and you are still unfamiliar with the complicated array of micro-expressions that cross his face in a way that cannot be voluntary.

Instead he looks away, down towards the wiring system, and you see his lashes around the edge of his shades, the way he’s almost human in these stilted moments of awkward silence.

“So,” he says again, an exhalation on a held breath. “You and - and him.”

Bro rarely spoke without purpose growing up. Not in all things, of course, but in the ones that mattered. or you thought mattered, back then. The hesitance now, the way you can see Dirk between the cracks. It’s bizarre. It probably always will be.

You fold your legs up towards your chin, tilt your head an inch. “Who, Dirk?”

He grunts. You take that to mean _‘Obviously, idiot.’_

“What,” you snap on reflex, defensive for no sane reason you can think of. “What about us?”

Bro sighs, drops the cord and shoves both hands into the side panel. “You’re...” He trails off, clucks his tongue.

Ugh. You groan, wipe a hand down your face. “You and everyone else needs to hop the fuck off that train right now.”

Bro scowls, gives you a look that could kill a man unprepared, and you regret interrupting him immediately. You scoot back so you’re on the ege of the shade, can feel the sun burning your fucking arm hair. “You’re close,” he says slowly, like you don’t get it, or he doesn’t want to say. “In a -” He stops, looks down at his work. Clears his throat. “A meaningful way. You get along.”

“Oh,” you say, and feel yourself turn red, and not really from the heat. “Well. Yeah, uh. We get along really well, actually. I dunno. Got a lot in common and everything.” You flick your eyes to him, think about how Dirk will look just like him, one day. Barring the broken nose, maybe. Might be too early to tell. “I guess.”

Both of you continue not to speak, him perhaps because he doesn’t have anything to say, you because you don’t know what you _should say_.

“Did you drag me up here just to ask me that?” you finally ask, when it’s been silent too long and you feel like you might burst.

He furrows his eyebrows. “What?” Then, before you can answer, “No, Jesus fuck. I was just -” Bro sets his hands on his knees, breathes in heavy through his nose, sighs again.

“Just what?” you murmur, and if it was Dirk, you’d take his hand, or you’d touch his knee, or any of the other absolutely ridiculous gestures that have cultivated between you like bad habits shared by toddlers. You crack your knuckles against your knee for lack of anything better to do with your hands.

Bro’s silence has bothered you a thousand times, and you’re sure it’ll bother you a thousand more. He drags a hand down his face, a familiar gesture, leans forward until the bill of his hat bonks against the AC unit. “Reckon I was just making polite conversation. It’s kind of pathetic, isn’t it? Checkin’ on you like I’ve got any right at all to do just that.”

You stutter to a stop. Open your mouth. Close it. Your internal clock ticks five seconds, then ten, then thirty, and you choke on a reply. It’s not that you don’t know that Bro sees you both, obviously he does, and obviously you’ve been in close proximity since you beat the game, but you didn’t really think about how he might - well there’s a lot you don’t really think about, anyway.

You grind hard against the urge to shake your leg to the beat of a clock no one else can hear. It’s been bugging you since the night you time-traveled, has increased in presence and volume since you shoved your hand into a tangled web of frozen time and yanked it free.

“It does feel a little weird,” you admit quietly, even though you didn’t really want to tell him. The Dirk Effect, you decide, is starting to bleed a little bit. “I mean, shit with us is kinda.... It’ll probably always be a little bit weird? With the way things were, its - Well, I’M weird, and you’re -”

“Me.” He snorts softly, but he’s almost smiling, you think. “Yeah, I know. I get that. But you’re cool? You and him.”

It’s not really any of his business, and you don’t particularly want to talk about your shit with Dirk, with _Bro_ of all people, because it’s not fair to him, not here to defend himself, on top of being fucking weird, and not fair to you, because you have known Bro all your life and he is your own, glaringly obvious weak spot.

You drop your eyes to look at the hole starting to wear in your jeans. You should put your pajamas back on. No one would stop you, you think, and they’d probably hold up better against the sauna that is your fucking body right now, anyway.

“Yeah,” you say eventually, because Bro always expects you to answer his questions when he asks them, and you always have, so why break the goddamn streak?

You falter for something else to say, but can’t come up with anything convincingly chill or funny. Bro probably wouldn’t care either way.

And maybe he doesn’t, or maybe he’s trying. To care, you mean. You don’t know. You don’t really get this guy, lately (it’s becoming more clear that you never really got him at all). “You still think about -” His breath hitches, his mouth curls in a confusing way stuck between a grimace and something like a frown. Concern, discomfort, painted in the tightness of his jaw, the furrow of his brow.

You know what he means immediately, and your stomach goes sour, your chest aching and your fingers numb for how tightly they curl into fists. “Sometimes,” you tell him through grit and chattering teeth. It’s a fight against the phantom weight of your sword in your hand, against the mental image that drags itself to the forefront at the slightest mention. You laugh and it comes out rough, pathetic. “Not as much as I used to, but sometimes, still. Mostly when -” When Dirk brings it up, or you see his sword, or  _your_ sword, the way it’s just fucking sittin’ up there in your strife deck, mocking you. Only when one of your friends jokes about dying or you think about Bro’s seizures, the way he still goes too slow from time to time, like a machine with a stuck cog that needs to be greased. There’s a lot more shit going on in your life now than you planned on.

You don’t really want to say all that. So you don’t. “I don’t know. Maybe just more than I wish I did?”

Bro seems to roll this over in his head, watching you in that intense way he has, that he shares with Dirk, and you really fucking wish he didn’t. It’s like he’s a fucking lie detector, scanning your vitals or some shit. You don’t know. “Okay,” he says simply, doesn’t sound convinced. “That’s - well I ain’t gonna call it good. Better, maybe.” He brings a hand up towards his head, ends up pausing to adjust his hat before dropping it again. He doesn’t touch you.

“I didn’t think you’d really care enough to remember that,” you admit, like a moron. It’s a stupid thing to say, and you don’t know why you say it. You’re testing him, maybe, waiting to see what he does.

What he does is open his mouth, close it, and go so completely still and silent that you think you froze time, just for a second. He still does that, sometimes. It makes you deeply uncomfortable. The way he isn’t really staring at anything, how it feels in those milliseconds between a breath, how much like a mannequin, or a puppet, or something entirely unreal he becomes.

And then he takes a deep breath, sighs through his nose, and looks towards the heavens. “Dave, the shit you went through - all of it, I guess, I dunno, maybe I’ve been fucking it up since day one.” He has. He lets out something dangerously close to a wheezing laugh. “I  _know_ I’ve been fucking it up since day one. But that Sburb shit? That game shit? I can’t even fuckin’ fathom what that must’ve been like after I bit it. Don’t reckon I ever will. It’s enough to give anybody nightmares.”

There’s a lot to process there, from him admitting to fucking you up, to basically telling you he doesn’t  _actually_ know everything (though you guess you kinda knew that, already). What you say is, ”You have nightmares?”

Surprisingly, he just shrugs. “Lots of times, sure. It’s all bullshit, isn’t it? Seems a little miserable, in retrospect, to relive a death over and over.” He stops, then, drums a hand on his knee, _one-two-three-pinky_ , then back again, _one-two-three-index_. Bro’s always moving in four-four time, a predictable beat, comfortable, familiar. You don’t hate it. “That might be a little harsh,” he admits. “I’m sure your mom would tell me that’s a little harsh.”

“Maybe,” you say. You’re still thinking about the fucked up thing he said immediately before that. “The game threw a lot of stuff at us. Outside forces certainly didn’t fuckin’ help. I guess some of the spaghetti had to stick to the wall.” Then, because you hate yourself, “You dream about dying?”

Bro purses his lips together, tight and thin, a muscle in his jaw jumping. He doesn’t answer you immediately, starts jamming his thumb into the control pad and - doing something. Not clear enough for you to know what. Hopefully fixing the fucking thing. Sweat is starting to pool between your shoulder blades, makes its slow, horrible descent down your spine towards your ass.

“Yes,” he says, quiet enough that you jump, and he sounds mad, he looks mad, working aggressively at the wires and the little metal box in his hands. “Not always, can’t control your fucking dreams, that’d be wild, wouldn’t it? What a concept. But enough for it to -” He sucks in air between his teeth, lets out a heaving sigh that sends the tension tumbling from his frame. It’s a rare sight, to see defeat in the outline of Bro’s form.

You don’t know what to say to that. You have dreams of from doomed timelines all the time. It’s become so common place you forgot it probably isn’t normal. Oops. “Um,” you say.

“Don’t tell your mom,” is all he says, when he finally speaks again.

You can’t help but laugh. This whole thing is fucking ridiculous. “Okay,” you say. You feel a little hysterical. “I won’t. Wouldn’t, even if she asked. Even if she somehow cornered me and demanded I tell her all about your secret dream diary. Shit ain’t passing these lips. Shit’s on lockdown, practically Alcatraz. Grounded for life as an abstract concept, instead of a shitty early 2000’s sitcom.”

“Great,” Bro monotones, as if he’s listening at all, and it’s sweet sweet relief when the AC unit as a whole coughs and sputters to life. “But we’re probably somewhat outdated on our meme references by about three years. Might be time to study up if we ever hope to grace the halls of the Game Bro guest spotlight reviews ever again.”

“Do you think they’re still making that piece of garbage? And I do mean literal garbage.”

His mouth pulls at the corner, curls upward. “Been gettin’ a copy every month since we got back.” He pulls himself to his feet in a singular fluid motion that almost hurts your head to follow. You don’t think he even realizes he does it, sometimes.

You hop up, a little clumsy as you trip after him towards the stairs. “And you didn’t share that shit? That’s practically fucking treason, bro. You have spit in my face, thrown a glove down, a gauntlet, if you will. Now we’ll have to duel at sundown or some shit, while my wife weeps at my imminent death and I wear all black cuz hey, might as well dress for the funeral -”

You don’t realize he’s stopped until you run into his back, almost go tumbling down the stairs.

Bro stops you with a single hand on your wrist, grip steady, if a little warm with sweat. “Easy,” he says, soft, doesn’t complain when you jerk away.

“What gives?” you snap anyway, press yourself tight against the wall so that maybe if you’re fast, you can slip by him.

Bro looks like he’s about to say something, maybe critique your stupid mistake, maybe tell you to fuck off. But then he doesn’t, just turns back around and trots down the stairs, leaving you to follow after him, baffled and a little bit uneasy.

  
The heat finally breaks two days before the end of September when, against all odds, it fucking rains.

You haven’t seen rain in three years, on that barren wasteland of a meteor, all recycled air and unrealistic game mechanics. You’d expected it in Washington (hadn’t gotten it, and John and Jane mocked you mercilessly for asking), so when you hear the telltale pitter patter against the roof, smell that sharp sting of wet pavement, you untangle yourself from the covers, trip all over Dirk climbing out of bed, and flashstep to the living room before you even bother putting on a shirt.

Bro is already gone for the day, wherever he goes when he’s not working on shit at home, you don’t know, but Dave is up, sitting in his chair with the window wide open. He only turns his head a tick to see you for a moment before looking back out at that blissfully grey sky. “Hey.”

“Mornin’,” you say, and because you have poor social etiquette and also don’t give a shit, you wander over, curve around his shoulder to stick your entire arm out the window. Rain hits your fingertips, cool as anything, and you grin. Holy shit. “Thank fucking _god_.”

“Thank yourself,” Dave snorts. He rolls back over to the futon and crawls up on it, pulls it upright and curls into the corner. Sometimes you remember Bro almost died on the futon and it grosses you out, just a little. “About fucking time, huh? Didn’t think we’d ever see a normal weather pattern ever again.”

“Kinda fucked up neither of us had weather for three years,” you say, and he just shrugs.

Things with you and Dave oscillate between completely okay and fucked beyond all belief, and it looks like today’s gonna be one of Those days. You guess it’s par for the course on dealing with other versions of yourself. You don’t know. Bro and Dirk get on vaguely okay, even if their relationship seems to be centered mainly around Dirk stumbling on Bro whenever he’s high. You still haven’t gotten to see that, it’s kinda unfair, in your opinion. But they’re wacky, both of them, maybe a little concerning.  
The space between you and Dave may as well stretch for a fucking mile. “So,” you start, keep your hand out the window, measure the moments that exist between drops, “where’s Bro?”

He scoffs softly, and you’d know your own eye roll anywhere. “Wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Which means you gotta, now.”

Dave sighs, knocks his head back against the couch. You wonder if it’s subconscious, how both of you tend towards dropping your deadpan around each other. Maybe it’s just the depression. “Yeah.”

You should ask if he’s okay. Or maybe that’d come across asshole-ish. You’re not really as much of a master at dealing with your own shit as you like to pretend, probably.

Especially not with him.

You don’t wait for him to speak, walk over to the futon and flop down, stretch out enough that your feet almost touch his knee. He scowls in warning. He knows exactly what you’re doing. “Has he seemed weird to you since we got back?”

You don’t have to say who. Dave leans forward and grabs the remote. “More than normal?”

You hold your hand out for the other pillow. He hesitates, then hands you Bro’s, which you wedge behind your head. It smells like hair gel and CVS brand detergent. You better get comfortable. Dirk’ll wake up when he’s ready and not a minute sooner, and it’s too early to text any of your friends. Bunch of sleepy dicks, the lot of them. “Yeah,” you say. “It’s like -”

“He’s nicer,” Dave suggests.

You make a face. “I was going to say, less of a creep.”

“Right.” He does a full head eye roll again. “That’s what nicer means, dimwit.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know if I believe he knows how to be nice?” That probably came across more paranoid than you meant it to. Well. You’re right, anyway.

Dave sighs again, flips through the channels absently. “Idk,” he mumbles. “Maybe he just misses Mom.”

You raise your head to look at him, the way he keeps his eyes straight ahead and how he’s not really smiling. “Do you really believe that?”

He snorts. “No.” His thumb flips the channels in quick succession, one by one, like low bpm music, like a heartbeat, and you wonder if he knows he’s doing it. He speaks after a minute, quiet, barely a murmur. “But I do.”

“Yeah,” you say, curl an arm under the pillow to prop up a little better. “Me too.”

You watch Saturday morning cartoons on mute for fifteen minutes of tense, uninterrupted silence, and it bothers you so much you almost leave just to escape it. You don’t know what’s wrong with you. Why you can’t just like. Chill.

“So, where is he?” you blurt, on a third commercial break. “Bro, I mean.”

That startles a laugh out of him that is entirely unfriendly. “He said he was going shopping.”

A part of your mind goes completely blank, unable to fill in a proper image because - because you don’t have one. You don’t know if you have any memories of  _ever_ going to the store with Bro, beyond the CVS or a random gas station. You remember him letting you collect the Mountain Dew and the road trip snacks, remember bringing him a glass bottle of apple juice, maybe the first time you’ve ever seen him smile. It’s fuzzy, strange, and absolutely absurd. “Are you sure he meant like. Shopping? For what, exactly? Fuckin’ replacement posters? New hats? Taking a quick browse through the brajshop after his extended departure?”

“I think he meant like, grocery shopping,” Dave says, and this time  _you_ laugh.

“Are you kidding me? That’s ridiculous, man. Where would we even keep that shit? The fridge has been busted for years, and it’s always been full of shitty swords.” He just shrugs, and you frown. “You actually believe him.”

Dave looks uncomfortable, like he always does when the two of you talk about Bro. You don’t know how this keeps happening. “Why wouldn’t I? If he’s trying to be less shitty then it makes sense that he’d like. Actually buy food? Or whatever.”

Acid curls in your stomach, and your accusation is entirely unfair, comes out low and callous. “You trust him.”

“No,” he says immediately, with such certainty you can’t debate him. He looks down at his hands. “Well. I’m trying to.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” you say, and know immediately that it is too unkind, too bitter in a way that sits on your tongue and burns.

His face screws up and he drops the remote, looks at you. “What’s  _that_ supposed to mean?”

Don’t answer that.

Don’t do this right now.

You’re not going to like the results, you know it, you fucking know it.

“You’ve been acting like this since we got back,” you say, now in complete idiot mode. _Fuck_. “Since we beat the game. Like he isn’t a complete douchebag who spent years fucking with both of us.” _Shit_.

Dave so comfortably fills the space beside Bro, exists side by side with your brother with an ease you never managed.

“Why are you so fucking cool with him? You act like all of this is just no big deal, par for the fucking course.” It’s startlingly like listening to you argue with Rose, all over again. And because you may as well fuck up everything while you’re at it, you say, “Did being part bird screw with your memory or what?”

Dave’s face is like poison, eyebrows set, the shape of his mouth cruel and dangerous. It’s the most you’ve ever seen Bro on your own face, seen Rose insidious, snarling. “Fuck you,” he says, and it’s quiet, dripping with fury.

You messed up. You messed up so fucking bad, and you can’t even rewind time to fucking fix it because you’re pretty sure it wouldn’t effect him. “Shit, dude, I didn’t mean to -”

“I think you know exactly what you did,” Dave snaps, and you’re almost certain that if hadn’t put down the remote, he’d throw it at you. “I don’t need your help, being reminded of my own failures,” he says, and he stares right at you, or through you, in a way that is intensely intimate and a little overwhelming. “Least of all from _you_. Seriously, you wouldn’t even fucking time travel when Jade was threatening you? I thought I was neurotic, but you’re a fucking mess.”

“At least I’m not projecting all my insecurities onto Bro like some kind of desperate little kid,” you snap, because it stings, even if it’s true.

“No, because you’re too busy projecting them onto Dirk,” and it’s a wonder neither of you has punched the other, because at this point you probably both deserve it.

Your hands curl into fists, and you sit upright, open your mouth to - you don’t know. Make it fucking worse, you guess.

He beats you to it. “You’re the Dave everybody wants and you act like none of that even matters.”

Your mouth snaps shut, your chest goes tight. Uh. SHIT, man. “We’re the same fucking guy, dude.”

“But we’re not,” he says, and he doesn’t look angry now, just kind of sad, small. You wonder if you ever look like that. If you weren’t all fucked up and albino if your cheeks would really freckle like that in the sun. “We haven’t been for a long time.”

“Yeah,” you mumble, uncurl yourself and pop the joint of your thumb against the knob of your ankle. “I know. Do you think -” You take a deep breath. It’s a bad theory if you’re wrong. He won’t want to hear it. It certainly doesn’t feel good to think about. “The reason there’s only one of everyone else. They all fused, right? But maybe we didn’t because -”

“We’re too different?” Dave sighs shakily, taps his fingers against his knee. _One-two-three-pinky_ , _one-two-three-index_ , just like Bro. You wonder, absently, if you’ll always be so similar to him. “Do you think that’s we can. Can do that thing?”

You think about the way his fingers fuzzed into yours, bordering on intangible, how it felt like you licked a battery after you let go. “I don’t know,” you say truthfully, and your skin buzzes at the memory. You hide an unpleasant grimace, but poorly. “I fucking hope not. No offense.”

He just shrugs, but you definitely made it worse than you could have, and your lapse into silence sucks, is fraught with discomfort and tension. You’re considering the downsides of waking up Dirk when Dave speaks again, unprompted, and you don’t expect it.  
“He apologized to me, y’know,” he says, and when you jerk your head up, he puts his shades on his forehead, looks at you with those fucked orange eyes, like sunset, like LOHAC lava.

He doesn’t have to say who. “For what?” you ask, but you don’t really want to know. It’s something you can’t really wrap your head all the way around. You remember Bro sitting beside you in a stairwell, pushing a can of coke into your hands, shirt the wrong color and voice too soft.

Dave laughs, but it’s borderline hysterical. “I don’t know. Everything? Kind of? Like all of our - our shit. The ugly messed up stuff no one wants to see.” He winces, and you see yourself in the narrowing of his eyes, how he doesn’t meet your own. “It was kind of a lot to process at the time, and emotions were running pretty hot, but he seemed sincere. I wanted to believe him. I  _do_ believe him.” He drops his head, picks at one of his socks absently. “I still haven’t forgiven him yet. Not that he asked me to or anything. I just.... didn’t say anything.”

Your stomach turns over like an old engine, and you swallow back bile. “Why not?” Your voice is rough, throat gummy.

Dave’s eyebrows pinch together, and he bites his lip, lets out a shaky breath. “Honestly? I guess I just don’t know how.”

“Oh,” you say, wrestling with the urge to go puke in the bathroom. “That’s cool, I guess.”

He just shrugs again and you realize, sitting there, burning with misplaced anger and confusion, that what you’re feeling is jealousy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am outta town this coming week for a convention! Hopefully I'll get some work down on the ride down though! c: so glad to be back and not sick, y'all <3


	28. interlude: actinium (rosé reprisal)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lalondes. They're gonna be the death of you, at this point, you're almost certain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! It has been so long (for me)!!! I did in fact have fun at my convention c:  
> This entire chapter was not supposed to happen but! Here we are!  
> Anyway content warnings for Bro being Bro, discussions of alcoholism, a couple mentions of death and like, normal r&g stuff! Y'all know the drill!  
> I apologize if this is too long! Sometimes it just happens like that!  
> (Happy fictional Halloween)

“So I was thinking,” and let it be said that this phrase, uttered from Roxy under any circumstances, has never boded well for you in any way, shape or form, “we should do something for Halloween.”

“I am doing something,” you say, leaning back in your chair, phone pressed between your ear and shoulder as you work.

You’re actually doing several somethings. October is a busy month for you, always has been, and foot traffic on your site increases twofold (if not more) with your somewhat odd fanbase’s interest in your Halloween Horror specials. If for nothing more than the morbid curiosity it attracts.

Fine with you. That is, after all, one of the main points (the other points being, of course, motherfucking puppets). All this really means is that you’ve got a pretty tight schedule, and the entire first week and a half has come and gone in a flurry of filming that culminated in a climactic and brutally bloody ending (and you don’t enjoy it half as much as you used to, don’t enjoy a lot of shit the way you used to, and the worst part is you’re not even sure if you _care_ ).

You can’t remember the last time you ate (don’t know), let alone slept (don’t care), and you haven’t seen hide nor hair of the Daves (plus one) since the start of it all. Just as well to kick them out, you guess.

Well.

Honestly Dave has always made himself scarce during October (at least during the dreaded film week, he usually comes back around when you hit the editing phase) and you can hardly complain. It’s a lot easier to splatter blood without extra bodies to be conscious of, blocking light sources and getting their feet in shots (you let him help, when he was little, and he still squealed and laughed and tracked bloody fuckin’ rainboot prints all over the floor for _weeks_ ). You’d go as far as to say you appreciate the space, but probably not for the right reasons.

“Your weird puppet snuff movies can take a backseat for five seconds, Dirk,” Roxy says, and you roll your eyes. “Don’t roll your eyes,” she adds. You scowl.

“I have a lot of work to do,” you sigh, staring at the hours of editing software that’s looking right back, and it’s not gonna blink first. Fuck you and your overachieving stupid ass bullshit.

“C’moooon,” she wheedles, and the warm, bright tone in her voice makes it abundantly clear that she knows exactly where this is heading. You have never been particularly good at telling her no, not even when you wanted to. “It’ll be fun! And great for the kids, yanno, there’s no game anymore, there’s nothing to stop them from being all normal-like and whatnot!”

You can think of a few things. God level power, for one.

Being born in a lab and hurtled towards Earth on a meteor, for another.

“Do I have to?” It comes out more childish than you meant it to, and you grimace where no one can see you. You’re still a bit of a dick (understatement), even after all this time (not that that’ll ever change, you don’t think). You want to think (pretend) you’re changing, that you’ve changed, and maybe you have (you definitely have, just not enough), but the thing of it all is that you still don’t particularly enjoy the company of practically anybody, and most of the time, you think you’d be better off alone.

Or dead. Again.

Honestly you’re not feeling that picky, at the moment.

Roxy pretends to think it over for a moment. “Yes,” she says simply, and you know you can’t argue. Won’t bother, anyway. She’d win, every time. Universal law, and all that. “C’mon, Dirkleton, live a little. You always liked Halloween, right? It’ll be great! What do you two usually do?”

“Nothing,” you say, and you hear the door creak open slowly behind you, would know the hesitant shuffle of those footsteps anywhere. “Kid trick-or-treat on his own, I worked. The end.”

“Boooo liar!”

You turn in your chair to catch Dave still clutching the doorknob, looking at you like he’s about to track mud all over the carpet. His hair is damp, hangs in his eyes and dapples waters on his shoulders and you think for a moment fuck, is it raining? before you note the towel under his arm, the shorts Rox bought for him three months ago and you remember this morning.

You pull the phone away from your ear. Be cool, bro. “Hey. How was the pool?”

Dave opens his mouth, sucks in a breath of air. You can read the hesitation in his shoulders, the way his feet are planted for a quick escape. You’d know it anywhere. You’re the one who taught him that. It speaks volumes, and it also makes you feel like shit.

“Crowded,” his voice says, but not from his mouth, and there’s your other Dave, rolling in past him, towel in his lap and hair dry and looking irritated. You should have known better than to send them alone. You should have taken Dave to physical therapy instead. Idiot.

You can hear the increased volume of Roxy and you sigh, drag the phone back up. “Hey, sorry. Kids just got back.”

Dave continues to stare at you, and you don’t really know what else to say so you turn back towards the computer, wedge Roxy between your ear and your shoulder, and carefully do not listen to creaking wheels or padding feet.

 

“What is that even supposed to be?”

You don’t sigh, because that would show irritation, and being mad at a kid isn’t going to do anything for you but make you mad at _yourself_ , later, completing some kind of predictable circle of self-loathing you really don’t need, so you keep editing and count to ten before answering Dave. “Severed limbs, non-specific Kermit-like entity. Just obscure enough to keep the copyright lawyers scratching their heads for the next few centuries.”

To your surprise, he lets out something like a muffled laugh, but it’s nervous, maybe a little closer to fear than you’d like. “Jesus Christ, dude.”

“You don’t have to hang out with me,” you monotone, because it’s easier than telling him to get lost. Well. Not easier. More effort, for starters.

(Nicer. It’s nicer, Bro.)

“No, I -” he starts, stops. You hear the shuffle of the blankets and don’t turn around. Sometimes he looks at you like he. You don’t know. Expects something more from you. Maybe something better, maybe something worse. It’s so fucking hard for you to tell. “I don’t wanna say ‘I want to’ because to be honest, you’re kind of boring, dude,” he admits, and you snort.

“I’m working,” you say, drag your headphones off the desk. “Look, kid, you can play the Xbox or whatever if you promise not to break it again.” And this time you do look at him. He scowls magnificently, and you hide a smile.

“Fuck you, Bro,” he says, but it’s not a no. It’s also not a thank you, either, ungrateful little shit, but you think you’ll live.

  
“Would you take the kids for a week?”

It comes with no pretext, not because you’re trying to kill her, but it bubbles to the forefront of your mind. You think of early summer, Dirk standing away from you, poised to go but hesitant, curious enough to stay. Cautious, always.

“Uh,” Lalonde says, chokes on a laugh that is entirely uncomfortable. “What the fuck.”

“Yeah, sorry, what did you say before that?” You’re getting better at sorry, but the chronic self-absorption and somewhat genetic lack of empathy is a daily struggle. You’re kind of a mess.

“I asked if you had thought any more about our Halloween plans! Jesus, Dirk, get your head out of your ass.”

“Mm, can’t,” you hum, lean back against the AC unit. You should be working right now, but the kids are playing games and shit (together, for once, Christ), and you’re acutely aware of how absolutely exposing and exhausting it is, being on the phone in front of three people who watch you like a hawk. “Been stuck there for thirty years plus, why break a streak.”

“You’re the worst,” she huffs, but you can hear the smile. Your relationship with Roxy hasn’t been easy, not in a long time, but she tolerates you better than most people might.

“I know,” you say, and alone on the roof, you allow your mouth to curl.

“I could, if you wanted,” she murmurs after a moment, and the echo of her heels on tile means she’s in the labs again. You can’t imagine what she even does in there, now that it’s all over. It’s probably better, not knowing.

You’ve never had much of a vested interest in the inner workings of Skaianet. Never had the time, anyway.

You don’t have to ask what she means. “I’d appreciate it. S’not that I don’t like havin’ them around here, I just -”

“Don't, I know,” she snarks, and you think she sounds disappointed (and she’s well within her right to be, isn’t she, with how much you’ve fucked up - you don’t think you’ve ever apologized to her for that). “Will you ever talk to me about -”

“There’s nothing to say,” you lie, and it’s an ache in your chest, the now-familiar burn of something entirely unpleasant. Your hand finds the area at the base of your ribs and presses at it absently. Death may not have stuck, but the memories most certainly fucking did.

 _“Do you have a scar?”_ Dave had asked, because he’s your perfect little freak, and you had seen no reason to lie.

You wonder now if that was the responsible decision.

Probably not.

Roxy sighs, and the two of you sit silent like that for a long moment. You should ask how she’s holding up. If she’s really gotten rid of that whole room, the reek of liquor you could smell from the hallway, the way she promised she was going to.

But you can’t ask her that, the same way you can’t tell her that you’re proud of her (you think, you want to be), that you know she’s always been capable of great things, that everyone makes mistakes.

But how can you, after everything you’ve done, the decisions you made, the way you turn and run at every opportunity, the way your lip pulls in disdain at the mere thought of being open for once in your miserable fucking life.

And you think, for a beat (like a heart, like a drum), that maybe you have changed, after all, twisted yourself into this impossible shape that can’t possibly lead to anything more than a broken spine and collapsing ribs.

You need to try harder.

“When?” Rox finally asks, and you do not flinch, consumed in your thoughts, her words a warm beckon backwards.

“After Halloween. Doesn’t even have to be a full week, just -”

A couple days, maybe a few weeks, maybe a few fucking months, Jesus Christ, what you wouldn’t give to sleep ALONE again.

“A couple days, to get my head on straight. Been feelin’...”

Feeling at all, in a sense you can explain, is still taking time you think would be better spent on literally anything else. And you can’t say weird, you can’t say off, you definitely cannot say _incomplete_.

“Crowded. Since Washington. Maybe longer.” Definitely longer. “Be nice to get some work done in peace.”

“Don’t talk to me about peace!” she scoffs, and you hear the heels again, _clack-clack-clack_ in 3-4 time, same as always, as she crosses the power grid. “As if I could ever get anything done with two girls around!”

She says this as if she is not the one with the shortest attention span out of all of you.

And yes, this time, you _are_ including Jake Harley.

You press your tongue into your cheek to fight the affection threatening to spill into your voice when you reply. She has a way of pulling (yanking, maybe dragging) out a piece of yourself you seldom (if ever) see. “ _Three_ boys, Rox.” It’s a bit hard to count the alternate version of yourself currently calling himself Dirk, but neither of you are responsible enough, you think, not to count, either.

“And you want to bring my count up to five all together!” Roxy practically shrieks, and you can hear her hand flapping around from here.

You think about Dirk, sitting next to you with his hand stuck in a pizza box no one else will eat, you own voice asking, “what would you want to do?”

“Maybe only four,” you murmur, and it’s a hard sell, as it stands, asking so much from her when she’s only six months sober, both of you six months alive, hands full, and to add Dave’s chair and accessibility needs on top of it...

But she’d do anything for the boys, you know, because Roxy may be selfish, may not always work to benefit everyone surrounding her, but she is nothing if not capable, if not so full of love she’s bursting at the fucking seams.

Christ, you don’t have to worry how the boys will survive it. You know the little fuckers will eat that shit right up.

Serves them right, after what you did.

What you’re still doing, maybe, if only just a little, and in a completely different way.

“What about your seizures?” Roxy pushes, and you know, you’d think everyone would give you a break for like, five fucking minutes.

You squeeze your eyes shut, give yourself a moment to pinch the bridge of your nose. Bite back on hair trigger anger. Don’t say (it’s none of your fucking business, can’t you just leave me alone, it doesn’t fucking matter) anything you’re going to regret.

You settle on cracking your knuckles one by one and counting to ten. “It’s been months.”

“Barely two!” she reminds you. You roll your eyes. “I do worry, you know, Dirk,” and her voice is soft, vulnerable, and a part of you recoils, and a part of you grits your teeth hard against that.

Push forward. Push past that. “I know,” you manage. “But I’m not a child, and you can’t babysit me forever.”

“I can try,” she says petulantly, and this time, you reward her with something you might even call a laugh.

 

You never did stretch out in your sleep. Not that you spent a lot of time sleeping, anyway, and when you did, it wasn't for very long. You’ve been sleeping on the futon almost half your life, in that narrow little space, and you never bothered to lower it until Dave needed

Well you’re still not entirely sure exactly what he needs, sometimes. You mostly just want him out of your hair, but you can't do that because the other two are already sharing a bed and. Jesus, this apartment is too fucking small. You could just get them bunk beds, or some stupid shit like that.

But he’s got hangups and you’re fucking exhausted, so you lie on your side staring at the TV and thinking you should tell him the plan. Wonder, minutely, if he even wants to go in the first place.

“Your mom’s comin’ back to stay with us next week,” you tell him, and you can hear as much as feel his flinch. You push back against frustration. You know how he gets. How they both get. Your brusque, somewhat informal way of breaking news is not a hit with your one and only audience.

“Oh,” he says, and you don’t speak. Wait for him to say more. With Dave (any Dave) there is always more. He’s always been like that. The rustle of sheets as he rolls over. “Couldn’t even make it two months, could we? What kind of pathetic ass example are we setting for the future? Rose is never gonna let us live this down, and I hope you fuckin’ know that.”

You snort. “It’s Halloween next week, dipshit. Her idea, not mine.”

“Oh,” he says again, and you heave a sigh, maneuver to face him. He’s not much for masking the way he feels without shades to hide behind. You can see how his jaw clenches in the low light, how he avoids looking you in the eye. “I forgot about that.”

You think there’s a very slim chance that is even remotely true, considering he’s been watching you edit and code at light speeds for the past three weeks, but you shrug anyway. Might as well go along with it. “Your mom figures you could use a break, soak up some downtime. What better way than to dress in shitty costumes and parade around downtown looking like an idiot?”

He hums, tucks his pillow between his head and an arm. You know the little fucker will come up with something to say that makes you feel terrible, he just has that effect on you (it’s part of the problem, you think), and you think about what it must have been like, losing three years to the game. “What about you?”

There he goes again, pushing at you. You don’t blink. “Who cares about me?”

“I do,” he mumbles, and it’s more sincere than you like. He’s always more sincere than you like. It’s not that you raised him to be a liar, ‘course, you just genuinely cannot handle the insane amount of emotional honestly that’s been thrust at you in the past four months, maybe longer.

Sigh, bite back a retort. If you fuck up again, Crocker will know, you would bet your boots on it. “Who gives a shit, kid.” You try bargaining. “Look, I’ll drive you over to River Oaks, figure those motherfuckers can afford a full size candy bars, make your trip short ‘n sweet.”

“Over to -” he splutters, and he’s not even pretending to whisper now. “We’re going trick-or-treating? Aren’t we like, too old for that now?”

You roll your eyes, try not to be bothered that he can actually see you do it. You cannot believe you are having this conversation right now. “Who fuckin’ cares. Your mom trick-or-treated until she was almost eighteen.”

He squints at you silently, pinches his lips together while he figures out how to respond. “Nuh-uh.”

“Mmhm,” you say, and you’re not smiling, not even a little, tuck your arm under your pillow slowly (always so fucking slowly these days, like moving through jello, like you need a fucking walker, Christ). “Pretty sure she’ll still have pictures somewhere. She was a nightmare with a Polaroid.” Your mouth turns sour and you don’t have to imagine the way he tenses up, out of the corner of your eye, but you are not cruel enough to mention it, not this time, even if it bothers you (and so many things do, these days). “Then she discovered house parties and -” Okay you can’t fucking tell him that. “Well. Doesn’t matter. She ‘n I fell out of contact pretty soon after that. She didn’t need me anymore.” A shrug here, keeping the bitter disappointment out of your voice there. All in a day’s work. You don’t want him to think any less of Roxy, not when she’s been working so fucking hard to fix everything all on her own. You haven’t helped as much as you should. “Your mom has never really needed anyone. Even if she thinks she does.”

Dave doesn’t seem to know what to say to that, staring at you in that uncomfortable, intense way he has. There’s accusation in his eyes, when he looks at you. Well-deserved, you know. But it doesn’t make it any easier.

Not many things in your life have been easy, since you rose from the dead like some kind of fucked up video game version of Lazarus.

Instead, he says, “Did you trick-or-treat?” and it throws you off enough that your eyebrows rocket up towards your hairline.

“What?”

It comes out harsher than you meant it to, you can tell, because Dave curves in towards himself in increments, millimeters no one would notice but you. You cannot say sorry, because it is not something you have inherently done wrong, and to apologize for being yourself would be.

Problematic, even for you.

Especially for you.

You don’t let him repeat himself. You’re an idiot. A cruel, somewhat inept idiot, but you’re not a fucking addle pate. You try to think about the last time you did, in fact, trick-or-fucking-treat. It had to be before you moved out. Before you were on your own (you have always been on your own, in the same way you were never on your own, but now isn’t really the time to think about that, definitely not in front of Dave). “Yes,” you say, and then add, when he opens his mouth, “I don’t have any pictures.”

You think he looks disappointed, and a little tightness balls itself up in your chest, a foreign sensation that leaves you entirely uncomfortable.

(You will realize, later, that it’s a kind of guilt.)

“Okay,” he says, and you fight (and lose against) a sigh.

There are very few ways you can approach Dave and Dave that does not immediately make them cringe, but you remind yourself to be patient, because they sure as fuck have been, and it’s disturbingly easy, reaching out, giving him an almost-pat, half-hair ruffle. It pulls through your fingers like down and you try not to think about the flap of wings, the horrible growling, the teeth-chattering laughter that played in the back of your head like a record stuck on repeat.

“Go to bed, kiddo,” you say, and your voice is soft, low as it always has been, but perhaps, you imagine, just for a second, just a touch kinder.

He doesn’t shrink away from you as he rolls over with a huff, more embarrassed than anything, and you let your hand fall away, don’t quite stop a smile. “Goodnight, Bro,” he says, meek as anything, and you see the knobs of his spine caused by the hunch of his shoulders.

There are better ways to respond to this. There are kind, soft ways. What comes out of your mouth is “Uh-huh,” and you think, _God fucking dammit_.

 

You don’t tell them about your plans with Rox. It’s not that it’s none of their business - just the opposite, it’s just that you’re not really in the mood to deal with what will be an inevitable argument from one of them, and you haven’t yelled at anyone since

You don’t really like talking about it.

You pick up her and the girls alone (the boys take up too much room on their own, and you already hate driving rentals, to start with) on the Monday before Halloween, and you feel strange, standing alone in the middle of the baggage claim. It reminds you of being younger, of being alone (but you weren’t alone you had him), clutching a single electric orange suitcase in one hand and a soft little mitten in the other.

There are better ways to spend a weekday, of course, and you think about your files at home, ready to launch in two days if all goes according to plan. You’re thinkin’ midnight drop, watch the numbers rise for an hour before you pass out or something. If Rox weren’t here, you might even drink a beer. Oh well. Better safe than sorry with her, always.

You wish you were at home, in your bed sleeping instead of standing here, feeling like a dude watching paint dry while the airport fills up and people swarm around you in groups of twos and threes and more. You could just leave, but Rox would absolutely eviscerate you if she had to take a cab, or potentially just kick you in the balls. She’s not too picky.

You hear her before you see her, and isn’t that just so on fucking brand. Her squeals of delight echo down the gangway as she shuffles towards you in high-heeled boots.

“DIRK!!” is the only warning you get before she throws her arms around you and proceeds to choke the ever living shit out of you.

There are two ways to deal with this, and trying to pry her off of you only results in her clinging tighter. So you sigh, you cave, and you bow your head enough that your forehead bonks against hers. There is something warm there, when you touch your hands to the place between her shoulder blades, and a smile pressed into her hair as you turn your head to hide it belongs to the two of you, and the two of you only. 

  
You don’t hate mini-Roxy, for several reasons. She has a magnanimous personality that makes her hard to dislike and the bright, borderline maniacal way she laughs is so reminiscent of your own Lalonde that you have a difficult time trying to ignore her.

Still, it tests your patience when she leans over your shoulder, hand warm through your shirt, and it sends needles down your spine at the unexpected contact. Casual affection is a foreign, uncomfortable new element in your life, and you do not like it any more than you did six months ago.

“Whatcha doin’?” Roxy speaks with the same kind of off-rhythm tone as Dirk, twisted into New York staccato instead of a drawl. It’s like a badly tuned piano, like the idea of what someone thinks an accent should sound like. You’re not judging too harshly. You know things were... different, for them. You don’t really understand all the details. Or have a hard time believing them, anyway.

“Waiting,” you grunt, try to roll her off you. She only drapes more aggressively, and you sigh, figure fuck, may as well let it happen. She’s stubborn, you’ll give her that.

Lalonde lets out a wild roar of a snore behind you, and it startles a laugh out of you that you clamp down on immediately.

It’s too late, of course. You can hear Roxy grin before she speaks. “Don’t,” you warn.

“I didn’t say nothin’,” she huffs, shoves at you gently. You’d be impressed she isn’t scared of you if she wasn’t so damn smug about it. “So what are you actually doing?”

“Your doppelganger’s in my spot,” you monotone simply, drum an impatient hand along the keyboard. _Tick-tick-tick_ as you struggle not to shake your leg like a child. “I’m hoping she rolls the fuck over so I can go to bed.”

“It’s almost midnight,” she points out. “If I know me - or not-me, I guess, lol - she ain’t movin’ anytime soon, dawg.”

You know that. She knows you know that. You know she knows you know that. Circles on circles on circles.

You guess it doesn’t really matter if she knows. Your Roxy has always thought you were weird, probably always will. Doesn’t bother you none. “The official release for the Halloween special is midnight. It has to be on the dot or I’ll get email upon fuckin’ email about it til the cows come home.”

“People really say that?” she blurts, and you tilt your head just enough to look at her.

There’s genuine curiosity there, and that just makes it worse, the wide pink of her eyes, the way her mouth seems to curl up naturally, stark contrast with traditional Lalonde black. You’ll never understand these dames and their godforsaken lipstick.

“Sometimes,” you tell her, and it’s still weird, and you wish she wouldn’t touch you, but don’t know how to ask her to stop it, and if Dave weren’t passed out on the floor of his room (and you checked, too, because you - you don’t know, that’s what parents do? you think?) he’d probably be flipping his shit right now. “Rarely. It doesn’t really matter. Bottom line, shit’s gotta be done and I’m the man pullin’ the strings. Figuratively, and in this situation, quite fucking literally.”

Roxy actually does smile at that, left cheek dimpling before the right, and you don’t look away because it feels like a challenge. “You know,” she starts, and Christ, here we fucking go “you’re a lot like Dirk.”

Well. That certainly is something she just said, there.

You’re kind of unsure of how to respond to that, grapple for a retort. Finally settle on, “No shit.”

“I mean, beyond the genetic duplication, dummy,” she says, knocks her elbow roughly against the side of your head. Your hat tips to the point of falling.

It doesn’t hurt, so you let it go, shift and remove your hat entirely. You’re not really in the mood for this conversation, at 11:47 pm the night before Halloween, with a pesudo-clone of your one and only best-worst friend. You are very suddenly, all at once, completely fucking exhausted. “Okay,” you say. You don’t really want to do this right now. Or ever.

“You work too much,” she explains, and there is warmth in her voice, a bleed from her Dirk to you, you’re almost certain. “You get these wacky ideas that you just can’t fuckin’ stop yourself from doing, even if someone tells you not to, and then you spend so much time wrapped up in your shit to the point that you forget everything else exists, or matters, and that other people have feelings, too.”

She’s not wrong, but you resent it, so you ignore her. Ten more minutes.

She’s staring at you. You can feel it, and you curl the fingers of your right hand until the nails press into your palm. You will not snap at a little girl. Not even Roxy Lalonde. Maybe especially her.

“I don’t really give a shit,” you say.

Roxy moves her hand off your shoulder turns to lean against the desk instead. “I think that’s probs not true, but I don’t know you well enough to dispute it.” She pauses, thinks about that. “At least not this u. Dirk’s not an easy book to read, but he always gives a helluva lot more shits than he pretends to.”  She goes quiet for a moment, pinks at the edge of your speaker. They probably make better quality stuff now, three years down the line. You don’t know if you’ll bother replacing them, though. You have never liked change. When she does speak again, it’s a murmur. “I think you probably do, too.”

You sigh out your nose, lean back in your chair. You don’t love the idea of being compared to the kid, even if she’s not completely off the mark. This isn’t really how you expected to spend this evening. Your eyes itch and burn and you grind the heel of your hand into them because she’s probably the only one who won’t stop you. “Kid, I really don’t think this is an appropriate conversation for you ‘n I to be having.”

“Because I’m a teenie?” She wiggles her eyebrows. You scowl.

“Because it’s fucking weird. Don’t any of you ever fucking sleep?”

“Mmmmmnope!” She waves her hands at you, and you watch the clock tick 11:58. Two more minutes. “I’m just sayin’, you get rly focused on your shit, just like Dirk, and sometimes it gets to the people around him. Or you, I guess.”

You pivot your foot so that your chair faces her straight on. You can see how uncertain she is now, how she gnaws at her lip, how, in the blue of the computer screen, you can see the bitten edges of her nails. Maybe you’re worse than you thought. “You’re not talking about Dave,” you say. If she was, it wouldn’t be Roxy, bugging you at - your eyes flick to the bottom right corner of the screen - 11:59. Sixty seconds and counting. “What do you want from me, Lalonde?”

That makes her eyebrows knit together, a frown forming in familiar lines across her face. You have known Roxy Lalonde for a long, long time.

You look away long enough to hit enter and sigh again. Relief, anxiety. There it goes, out onto the internet for whatever fucked up audience you have left. It’s over now, anyway. You can crash, if you want. Maybe for a few days, if everything works out.

“What I want doesn’t matter,” she insists. You sincerely doubt that. It’s unfair to say your Roxy is selfish, even if it’s probably true. But you don’t know her duplicate well enough to tell, and you’d be a hypocrite to mention it.

“But there is something you want,” you say patiently. You don’t know why you’re tolerating this horseshit.

Well.

You do, but you hate that soft part of yourself more than you can properly express, and it’s kind of late to pull a one-eighty now.

Roxy looks down at her hands, and you think about how much Dave really does look like her. You’d forgotten, you think, how Lalonde used to be, as a kid. “I’m trying not to make everything about me, even tho I know you don’t really care if I think it is or not. Rose doesn’t -” Her hand finds her mouth absently while she talks, and she bites at her thumbnail, doesn’t look you in the eye. You don’t try to stop her. Not your shitty kid.

You have a faint, somewhat annoying idea of what she wants to say, and you’re honestly not really in the fucking mood for it, but oh well. You’re kind of trapped, with her standing between you and the only exit available. “You want me to talk to Dave’s sister? That’s what this is about?”

She at least has the balls to look aggravated at that, and you wonder if no one’s told her yet that she doesn’t have to pretend to be happy all the time to make everyone else’s lives her perceived notion of easier. “She has a name,” she says, and you just shrug.

“I’m aware of that.”

That earns something closer to a pout than a scowl, but at least she’s on the right track. “It’s not weird for her to want to know you. U get that, right? You’re a Dirk, too, I kno at least a lil bitty part of you is just as curious about her as she is about u.”

Lalonde the younger has not gone unnoticed by you, no. The fact that she stares at you, that she’s always gone a cutting little remark waiting for you  _definitely_ hasn’t. Not that that really bothers you. It’s not so much a point of interest for you as a point of terror. The uncomfortable knowledge that another human shares half your genes, and the pieces of you that shine through so clearly just make you

You don’t know.

Nauseous, maybe.

Like dread dripping down the spine, like hot sour bile climbing up the back of your throat.

It is not her fault (mostly), but you have spent the past few months avoiding being the only other person alone in a room with your, your daughter?

Christ, should you be paying child support or - or some shit? Holy fuck. What the _fuck_.

“I’ll take it into consideration,” is what you say to Roxy, who is staring at you with her lips pressed together, fists curled loosely at her sides, stance good enough for fighting.

Which reminds you.

Roxy gets into your good books simply by merit of being the only person so far who, when you reach into your strife deck, does not immediately yelp or scramble backwards. You brandish your sword, hold out the hilt towards her with the blue cloth visible. “This your handy work?”

She lets out a gasp and it’s simple Roxy Lalonde 101, because just like that, she’s completely distracted. She takes it from you with a look of wonder and delight, and when it leaves your fingers, you feel like a weight has been lifted off your chest, a tightness you never realized you were carrying. “Holy fuck, is this...?”

“Mmhm.” The way she’s holding it is entirely unsafe to the point of making you grimace, but you can keep an eye on her and take a moment without your murder weapon to breathe at the same. “Not sure how it founds its way back to me. Reckon when the Game ended, certain factors reset to their default location. For us, it was the roof. For the sword, guess it was with me. Barring what I assume is your uh. Ribbon?”

“It’s a mask,” she says with a grin, pulls it off with one hand, balances the sword in the other. It wobbles. “I’m one heck of a rogue, all stealing stuff that don’t exist and whatevs.” Christ al-fucking-mighty, that is dangerous, but she seems to manage it okay. Probably uses fistkind, with arm strength like that. Guess some things are universal constants. She frowns. “I guess I stole Her life, too, huh?”

You don’t really know what that means, at first, until you remember what Dirk told you about Dave cutting off his head. That said, you do NOT need to have another conversation about murder with a teenager. You’re still kind of avoiding the first one. “I think killing a villain is something that heroes are supposed to do,” you say, gentle as you can. When you reach out, pry the sword from her hands, she lets you, and you try to ignore the way your stomach drops, guts all twisted up inside.

There are burdens you can handle on your own, regardless of whether or not you want them. This is one of them.

You banish it back to your deck with a wave of your hand and then she’s just standing there, holding a mask and looking a little defeated. “It’s okay to feel bad about it, though, if you do,” you add, like some kind of bizarre obligation you can’t quite stop yourself from fulfilling. You think, absently, that you’re getting too much practice at this.

“The thing is,” Roxy starts, and her voice catches in her throat. “The thing is, I don’t.” She laughs, but it’s harsh, a little hysterical. “I feel like maybe I should? Feel worse about it, but when I think about what she did, to me an’ Dirk, to Janey and Jake and just...” She takes a deep breath, squeezes the mask tight until it vanishes with a pop. You both stare at her empty hand.

“Does that happen often?” you ask, try to keep your voice casual.

She sputters a laugh, weak and soft. “Not recently!”

“That seemed like a god thing. Did it feel like a god thing?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugs, rubs her hands together like it’ll help the nerves, and her smile slides back off her face before it can really acclimate to its time there. “I don’t feel bad. About it. Just kind of uneasy-like and maybe a little - um. Satisfied?”

Well. You’re extra not built for this kind of conversation. You’re struck again by how young they all are, how it must be, to be a god at such a young age. Whatever that entails. “I think that’s okay, too,” you say, and wish these conversations would stop happening.

She sniffs, looks at your with shining eyes. “Yeah?”

You don’t lie as a habit, simply because you have never especially needed to, so you sigh out your nose, turn the chair back around, and say, “Yeah.”

 

“I don’t think people are going to understand what you’re going for here,” Rose says, leaning into the bathroom to watch Dave and Dirk apply their somewhat bizarre if delightfully terrible makeup.

You think that’s probably part of the point. You hover behind her and too the side, just far enough that neither of you touch. You came over here to tell them to shut the fuck up, but came to a complete halt when you saw the way they were dressed. Now you’ve all been standing here just watching this train wreck happen. You probably could have offered to help. Should have, anyway.

“I think that’s part of the point,” Roxy says with a giggle, validating you entirely. She’s perched on the edge of the toilet, face painted grey and white-blonde hair pinned to look short. You think you’re missing the significance of the green suit and red bowtie, but you’re not about to ask any of them, either.

She’s like, a wizard? You think? She has a wand. The rest... you’re not entirely sure about.

What the fuck ever.

“It absolutely is,” Dave says, and when he turns to you with the outline of some kind of psychotically bad mouth drawn over the lower half of his face, you have to physically leave before you fucking lose it.

“Did he just _laugh_?” follows after you, but you are already speeding away, still battling a smile when you reach the kitchen.

Their mom went to pick up Dave from his physical therapy appointment five minutes ago, and the kids’ll have to hold out long enough for him to change and get ready before you take them out. You grab a can of Crush and flop back on the futon, turn on the TV. Close your eyes. It’s rare you don’t have at least some form of a headache, but you figure that’s just part of dealing with. Well. Just everything, you guess. Being alive. Five fucking kids. You know. Life stuff.

You’re scrolling through your websites’ traffic on your phone when she speaks. “I’ve heard a somewhat discredited rumor that you are capable of laughter.”

You freeze with your can at your lips, only stutter a millisecond before catching yourself. Rose stands leaning against the door, her arms crossed and smiling that way she has that makes her look like a fucking shark. Her lips are still painted black, but the whiskers on her cheeks twist with the curve of her mouth.

“Unheard of,” you say, put the coke down on the table. You look from her white ears to the tall cone-shaped at and long, tentacle like sleeves covering her hands. “Please tell me you are literally just a cat and nothing weird or fucked up that I’ll have to search for on the internet later.”

“The tentacles don’t give it away?” she asks, flops them towards you in a comical way. I’m a cat-tentacle princess hybrid, obviously. An ode to our beloved Jaspersprite, now just Jaspers once more. You should get your eyes checked. Squinting at everyone from behind those ridiculous glasses can’t possibly good for someone your age.”

Your blow air out your nose, bite the inside of your cheek. She’s a mean little fucker, this girl, but you almost kind of like that about her. Aside from the existential dread her mere existence provides you, you almost don’t mind that you can see yourself in the line of her nose, the point of her chin. It’s narcissistic, at best. Fucking freaky, at worst. “Gonna be honest, we’ve been livin’ in Houston so damn long I’m pretty fuckin’ sure the shades are the only reason neither of us are blind at all. Dunno how any of you can see in all that mess.”

“We can’t,” she sighs, sits down with enough space between you to make it clear the gesture is passive-aggressive. “At the very least,  _I_ can’t. I can’t speak for Mother or Roxy, since neither of them really complain about anything.” She leans forward, drops and elbow on her knees and puts her chin in her hand. “It’s somewhat aggravating, dealing with both of them at once. Roxy is okay, she and I are quite adept at dealing with each other’s multiple neuroses. But...” She rolls her head to look at you. “I’m not quite sure how you handled her, all those years.”

You lift a brow. “Your mom?”

She shrugs. There is something hesitant in her face now, so unlike how she was mere moments ago. You guess you’re partially to blame for that. “I suppose I just keep expecting her to... to revert. For things to go back to the way they were before, when I was thirteen. I suppose I spent so long absorbed in the woman she was, I never expected to deal with the woman she might become, if given a second chance. More time.”

“Christ, we were just kids when she and I were still -” You sigh, lean back. Things with Roxy have been difficult for a long, long time. Since you were teenagers. Maybe before that, you don’t know. There’s a line that blurs in there somewhere, the parts of you that were closer to Cal than yourself.

You guess.

Roxy’s... general problems - habits, addictions, whatever - are the worst kept secret this side of the Mississippi, but you can hardly talk bad on her when you’re.

Well.

You’re you.

"I didn't do much in the way of handling her alcoholism, if that's what you're asking me," you say, and Jesus, isn't this a way to start off your first full conversation. "Why ARE you asking me?"

Rose gnaws on her lip, and you don't need a degree to figure out where she gets it. "Because everyone else acts like it doesn't still affect them. Or me. Especially me. Specifically me, it appears, since everyone - fuck, maybe I should just say Dave - seems to think everything is entirely fine. The herd has moved on, if you will. They don't care that I think it is nigh unfathomable to accept that my mother is cured because she hasn't dipped back into the sauce!" And she doesn't sound like an uppity little brat who's too smart for her own good. Just a kid hurt by her mom who's taking it out (justifiable, really) on you.

There are a lot of ways you could handle this. You could get up and walk away and just. Hide until her mom comes back. You could drag Dave in here and make him deal with this himself. But you told Roxy Jr. you would try (kind of) and if there's anything you're familiar with, it's Roxy Sr.'s alcoholism.

"Your mom wasted a lot of her life," you say, and it is true, but it feels like a betrayal. "She spent a lot of time trying to forget what we - well." You look at Rose, and she pulls her knees up onto the couch, wraps her long sleeves around her legs. "Being a guardian meant dealing with a lot of shit. Knowing a lot of really fucked up shit. We all dealt with that differently." You think about Hass. Yourself. "Or, we didn't deal with it at all. "She got shit done, Lalonde, but she fucked up plenty along the way."

Rose hums, puts drops her head, but not her eyes. The steadiness of her gaze reminds you more of Dirk than it does you. "I spent a long time thinking I could understand her by..." She wrinkles her nose. "By drinking, by putting myself in her shoes. Or my idea of what that meant. I thought, she was just a lonely single mom and it's not her fault. She did what she had to do." She flaps a hand. Or rather, a sleeve. "But that was all postmortem. I feel like I forgave her because she was dead, and I'd never see her again, and that's all there was to say on the matter. And if I didn't let go, I'd never be able to move on. But now..." She releases a shuddering breath, bonks her head against her knees. "I don't know. I suppose I couldn't have possibly fathomed getting a second chance with her. Now that I have it, I'm at a loss for what to do."

And don't you fucking know it. You've spent the last seven months scrambling for purchase, fucking shit up and wishing, desperately, for everyone to leave you alone. You're on the opposite end of the scale, here, but you at least understand where she's coming from.  
Somewhat, anyway.

“Your mom is doing her best, now,” you tell her, because it’s true. “She may not have always made the right decisions," which is also true, "but she ain’t malicious, not like you or me. Whatever your perceived idea of her during your upbringing was. Her intent was probably always to do right by you, kid. But that doesn't mean she was right. That you can't be frustrated, or angry." You shrug, roll your shoulders in discomfort. "Rox may not like hearin' what you have to say, but she'll never stop you from sayin' it. You should talk to her. Doesn't gotta be right now, but you should."

Rose _frowns_. It’s two parts Roxy, one part you, and whole leagues of Dave. You guess they’re sorta-kinda twins? Or something? “You think I’m _malicious_?”

You snort. Wow, what a thing to latch on to. “I don’t think. I know you are. Same as me. You...” You grimace, and you can’t hide it fast enough, so you don’t really bother. “You remind me of myself, sometimes,” you say, keep your voice low and even. “When I was your age. Doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but I wouldn’t necessarily call it a good thing, either.”

She goes very quiet, unfolds herself to sit, prim and proper, on the edge of the couch. "You don't know what you're talking about." Her voice shakes, and you realize you may have made her angry. Well. Tough shit.

"I told you," you say, and you put your feet up on the table, stretch out your legs. "It doesn't have to be a bad thing. I'm not tellin' you that to insult you, Rose. I'm telling you because I don't want you to end up like me."

Her head whips around. "Mind controlled by a puppet?"

"Alone," you murmur, don't let your mask fall. "Cruel as fuck, and completely alone."

She hums, regards you carefully. It's quiet a beat longer before she speaks. "You called me Rose."

You groan, tip your head back, pull off your hat. You've always pulled your hands through your hair when you were feeling nervous. It is a habit, you've noticed lately, that you cannot quite stop. "It's your fucking name, isn't it?"

"Yes," she says simply, but she's smiling when you roll your neck to look at her. "Thanks, Father."

"Gross," you say, and your mouth turns sour. "Don't call me that."

"What shall I call you, then?" she teases. "Genetic progenitor? Ectoplasm donator? Pops, Padre? Dad? Surely you can't expect me to call you Mister Strider for the rest of our lives? Or at least yours."

"Don't push it," you say. Add, softly, "That last one isn't too bad."

When Rose laughs, it's all you, and it's weird, and it's weirder that you don't complete hate it, or her, after all.

  
You let her ride in front on the way to River Oaks, despite the (rather loud) complaints from both Daves.

"Because she's not a shitty little brat like all of you," is your answer, when Dave complains for the thirteenth time. "Now shut up and get out of my car."

Dave - DS, Dirk calls him - takes a bit longer to maneuver out onto the road, and you're not entirely sure the angel costume is in good taste, especially here of all places, but you commend the irony and give him a bump before you take off.

"Call me," your mouth say, before you can stop yourself. "If anything happens."

"Oh, yes," he drawls rolling his entire head so you get the picture. "I'll be so fucking sure to do that."

Rose is the last one to depart, standing at the edge of the sidewalk holding her pillow case in one floppy-sleeved hand. You're not sure she'll actually speak to you, for a moment. And then she squints at you, mouth quirked up at the corners. "Should you really be driving at night with sunglasses on?"

You do not smile, not even for an instant, but you lean across the seats, put your shades up on the bill of your hat, and roll the window up without a word before taking off.

Roxy is ready with the movies when you get back, already in her silk pajamas and clutching the biggest fucking bowl of popcorn you've ever seen. "I got it at the mall," she whispers conspiratorially, and you cannot quite stop the air from stuttering out your nose.

"That better be the only thing," you tell her, kicking off your shoes and heading to the kitchen to quickly clean up the kernels she's somehow spread all over the counter.

"No, duh," she snorts as you flop down beside her, curl an arm over her shoulders as you settle in. You grab a fist full of popcorn and shove it in your mouth while she hits play. "I got you some matching jammies!"

And this time you laugh so hard you spew popcorn all over the coffee table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jazz hands! we are ending on a happier note today! i think it is about time that no one cries for like, five minutes haha  
> The next chapter will either be  
> WaY shorter or way longer, depending on my luck! Anyway thank you all sosososososo much for sticking with me and just like, supporting me while I was away for a few weeks! c;


	29. dread in triplicate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirk has a long week. He is perhaps only the second most comfortable with his own decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Campnano, everyone!!! Nanowrimo is the reason I started posting and writing most of this at all, and I'm having a great time! Thank you all for the marvelous feedback and I hope y'all continue to enjoy what's to come!  
> This chapter is uhhh pretty mild!

To say your SBaHJ costumes go over well during Halloween would be an overstatement, at the least, and a catastrophic lie, at the worst.

Still, you post plenty of pictures to your group chat, and you remind Dave that even if no one else gets it now, if he ever makes it big in this universe, you were the first cosplayers.

He scrolls through his phone roll of badly taken selfies, half of your poorly drawn on beard in one picture and his hilariously perfect Jeff mouth in another, and he smiles. “I shoulda autographed your face while I had the chance.”

Oh God, you sort of would have loved that.

“Appreciate the offer,” you tell him instead, knock your elbow into his, “but absolutely fucking not.”

“The fact that they even gave you candy in the first place is still a mystery to me,” Rose says, shaking her head.

“Please, with Dave ‘I’m literally an angel’ sitting right there next to us?” Dave scoffs. “They didn’t stand a chance.”

“Are you kidding me?” DS is lying upside down on the floor, and he frowns, though it looks more like a pout to you than anything. “That old woman almost fucking eviscerated me, all goin’ against the lord’s work and mocking our savior, blah blah blah.”

“Well,” Rose says, and she’s grinning, “Roxy’s costume certainly shut her up, didn’t it?”

It most certainly fucking did. People reacted to her with a mix between wonder and just straight up horror. It was kind of fantastic.

“Only because they didn’t get it!” Roxy huffs, and you smile when she purses her lips in a mimic of Dave’s pout. It isn’t really her fault, of course, that both of you are somewhat displaced in your pop culture references. It’s hard sometimes, realizing how much of your predecessors work has truly influenced your lives.

“You still looked great,” you reassure her. You know she spent weeks with Mom getting it together, even before you had any inkling they were going to come out this way at all.

She sighs and you feel a twinge of guilt. You know how she feels, and even though you can do precisely nothing to change that, you still want to

You don’t know.

Fix it, you guess.

It’s almost a tragedy, you suppose, how you just can’t help the way you pick and pluck and dig into every single little issue like it’s your burden and yours alone.

You don’t mean to, of course, in the same sense that you do. It’s just so easy, and when you feel like you can really, truly  _do_ something, you get so caught up in helping that sometimes all you do is hurt.

You know that.

You really,  _really_ need to stop.

But when it comes to Roxy, you just can’t help yourself.

She’s your best friend, your first friend, and above everything (and almost everyone) else, you want her to be happy.

You just don’t know how to fix this, yet. That’s all.

Bro showing up in the doorway unannounced is not new for him. Should hardly be worth mentioning at all, and would probably have gone entirely unnoticed if your head hadn’t jerked up at the hint of movement, sending both Daves jumping when they see him standing there.

You make eye contact (or something close to it) and you both grimace a little, yours prominent, his little more than the twist of his lips.

“Hey,” he says, and his tone is even, low. Trying not to spook them like frightened fauna. It’s something approaching pathetic, even if it’s kind of sweet. “Need to talk to the boys a sec. Scram, Lalondes Junior and Other.”

“Am I junior or is she?” Rose asks at the same time as Roxy says, “Am I s’posed to be Other or Junior?”

Bro’s mouth opens a millimeter before he presses his lips together, and you almost can’t tell if it’s frustration or humor. “Scram,” he repeats, this time with a jerk of the head.

“Don’t we get a say in this?” Dave asks, voice edging towards nervous, but no one is listening to him. You pat his hand. There there.

Rose stares at Bro in the same unnerving way she looks at you, needling intensity and the suggestion that she want to crack your head open and take a look inside.

And then just like that, she climbs to her feet, Roxy along with her. “Okay.”

DS gapes. “Just like that?”

“How can I say no when he asked so nicely?” Rose’s voice is saccharine sweet and completely incomprehensible. She comes to stand before him, and she looks at him with a smile that is nowhere near as sweet. “Excuse me, Father, but if you would remove your behemoth form from the doorway, Roxy and I would be happy to depart.”

Dave lets out a hysterical, shrill little sound that’s not quite a laugh. “What the _fuck_?”

Here’s the thing: Rose has been curt with you for the past few days, almost exactly before you left on Halloween night, and you were (still are) almost entirely sure that it has to do with Bro and something weird (possibly fucked up?) he must have said to her. If she realizes she’s taking it out on you, she hasn’t said, but you are smart enough to recognize something has transpired between them, though not enough of a fool to ask Rose about it.

You’re trying to avoid as much poking and prodding as physically (and psychologically) possible.

You touch the back of Dave’s hand again, shake your head, and he drops it, watches the girls go before giving you a look you can’t entirely read. You may have just taken the wrong side, but you also don’t entirely care. You’re pretty sure the two of you can handle disagreeing from time to time, and it’s probably healthy, besides.

“If this is some weird sex talk situation, let me know so I can opt out of it,” DS says, and Bro scowls, unimpressed.

He steps just inside the room, doesn’t close the door. You wonder (suspect, really) if he’s aware of how threatening he looks, filling the frame like that, everyone’s least favorite shadow. “Your mom and sister...s,” he says carefully, like he still hasn’t decided he likes the sound of it. You certainly don’t. “- are headed back to New York next week. Friday. They’ve also got three empty seats booked.” He clears his throat, shifts, and you become acutely aware of just how uncomfortable he is. “If you’re interested in them, anyway.”

Of all the things you expected him to say, this is not it. You had hoped beyond all hopes that he’d forgotten (you almost had), or in the very least that he’d have taken the time to tell (remind) you before dropping that shit like a ten ton nuclear bomb.

“Uh,” DS says.

Dave is less hesitant. He snorts. “An all expense paid trip to the middle of fucking nowhere to hang out with Mom? Sign me the fuck up.” It sounds like a joke, but you can hear the thrill in his voice, the idea of getting out from under Bro’s shadow a bit, having some room to breathe. Not that (in your opinion and experience) Rose’s mom does leave much room at all to breathe. She’s kind of a helicopter.

A fact you’ll probably never share, given her genetic relation to your (aforementioned) best friend.

You watch Dave’s face start to go flat as he thinks about it a little harder. “Wait. For how long?”

Bro folds his arms across his chest, leans against the door jam, and shrugs. “Long as you want. Your mom and I figured a couple’a days to start, but if you need more time, it’s yours.”

“You’ve had this planned for how long and didn’t think to mention it to any of us?” DS rolls himself up into a sitting position, although you reckon it might just be so he can glare more pointedly Bro’s way.

He just shrugs again, spares him a glance. “Week or so before Halloween, maybe. Not long enough to get your panties in a wad over.”

“Fuck you, dude,” DS snaps, and you think it’s inappropriate to be so proud of someone you’re still getting to know, but then, he’s Dave too, isn’t it? Just different circumstances. Just like- like you and Bro.

(They’re nothing like you and Bro.)

“You can’t really expect us to go along with this harebrained scheme to get us to fuck off outta here for long enough that you manage to get yourself killed. Hopefully by accident.”

Bro’s mouth pulls down at the corner, his jaw twitching, but he doesn’t speak.

“Dave’s right,” Dave says carefully, like he’s afraid that Bro will - you don’t know. Honestly, even after all this time, there are still moments with Dave that you don’t entirely understand, no matter how desperately you want to. “You can’t expect us to leave you here, dude. Not after the fit I fucking threw to get you to Washington.” And fuck, you still haven’t told them about what you saw, have you? Oops. “It just kinda seems like a hilariously bad idea, letting you be by yourself after you’ve almost died like, three times in the past six months.”

“Dave,” Bro mutters, and in a moment of humanity, he lets the three of you see him massage the bridge of his nose.

There is something almost touching about them together like this, in the most fucked up whackadoodle way. It’s almost too tender, really, in this moment, a Strider showing his weak side.

They care about him. You know it, Bro knows it, and you are almost ( _almost_ ) certain Dave knows it.

DS definitely does, even if his tendency towards kindness with Bro comes across more like bullying than anything else. You don’t mind. You think it’s funny.

But however they choose to show it, it makes Bro deeply uncomfortable (it makes them all deeply uncomfortable), and you can tell because he’s you (or you’re him), just how much he wants them to leave him alone.

The thing of it all is, you don’t really want them to say yes.

You’re not an optimist by nature. Any one of your friends could tell you that, would tell you that, if you asked, but there is a deep, very firmly rooted part of you that cannot stop the obsessive thought that your bro might come back.

And it could be any day, it would be any day, it will be literally any fucking day, to the point of arbitration, and it drives you absolutely batshit.

You have always managed well, dealing in absolutes.

The idea of your bro -  _your_ Dave - coming back, and you not being here, it’s

It’s too much.

The idea is too much, and it digs into your guys like the claws of an imperial drone, like needles in the base of your skull.

You cannot possibly leave, you cannot possibly be somewhere he can’t find you, you couldn’t handle it, and the possibility cripples you.

“Your mom and I have talked about it already,” Bro says, and when the Daves give him nothing, he raises a hand in mock salute. “Cross my heart.”

“Fuck you,” DS says again, but he sounds hesitant now, chewing the idea over in his head. “I guess it wouldn’t - I mean, I survived the plane ride to Washington, right? What’s fourteen hundred miles in the opposite direction?”

You pause to think about that. “Did you just calculate that off the top of your head?”

DS makes a face that ends with him looking down at his hands. He shrugs. “Dunno. I guess? I was mostly just spinning shit off the top of my dome, I don’t know.” And it’s kind of pathetic, so you drop it. He’s smarter than he thinks he is, but now isn’t really the time for that.

“Dave?” Bro asks, and it’s not demanding, it’s probably nice than he’s used to being, has ever been, but Dave still hunches into himself in a spectacular C-curve, and you feel entirely misplaced at his side. Guilty, in a way you don’t want to be. “I guess,” he mutters. “I mean, I want to go, obviously, I do. Spending time with my friends is fucking awesome, and getting to sleep in a room on my own sounds better. I just don’t know if I can handle Rose for that many days in a row.”

Bro lets out a stutter of air from the nose, but you guess he takes that as a yes, because now he’s looking at you. He cocks an eyebrow, doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t need to.

There are a few ways you could respond. You know that, of course, roll them over in your head intricately in half-frames while you think of what to say. You could take the easy way out, because it’s being offered to you. Cave, here and now. Just go along with it.

You think about Bro, head cocked to the side, curiosity to rival your own, voice lilting up in an honest question, distant but not uncaring. “What do you want to do?”

And then you say the thing that makes Dave look at you like you’ve grown a second head (please, Dave, you can barely keep a handle on the first). “I don’t know.”

“What?” Dave whispers, wraps his hand around your wrist, tugs. “Dude, what?”

Bro gives a short nod, a one-shoulder shrug. It’s pretty much what you expected from him in the first place. “S’fair. Take your time. Like I said, you got a week to decide.”

Then he’s gone, and Dave is staring at you over the edge of his shades, and DS is, out of the corner of your eye, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.

  
Dave doesn’t bring it up until later that night, when their mom and the girls have headed off to a hotel for the night (you’ve found that Mom and Bro can handle each other for a few days before they start sniping and bickering when they think no one is looking or around to hear them, and you don’t think they even realize how funny it is to you and Roxy both). It’s a tense couple of hours until then, though, and when you finally climb in after him, he turns to face the wall, and you lie with one foot stuck out of the blankets and an arm tucked under your head, just kinda. Waiting, you guess. You still don’t fall asleep easily most days, not even with the fan in the corner buzzing pleasantly. It’s an adjustment, for certain. Extra bodies, breathing, the lack of ocean waves.

Some days you still feel the hole where your loneliness used to live.

You go still when Dave finally prods at you, a knee to the back of your own, and you know that there’s no way either of you are getting any sleep at all until he gets what he wants.

In this case, that’s a huge heaping helping of _“What the fuck, Dirk?”_

“Hey, are you sleeping?” he whispers, and you can’t quite help the puff of air that escapes you.

“Did you just _'u up'_  me?”

“No, shut up,” he huffs, shoves at you. You feel a hand curl and tug into the fabric of your hero shirt. “Maybe?”

You sigh, try not to grin for the affection that floods your veins like dopamine, and roll over, careful not to elbow him directly in the face. He’s not wearing his shades, and you can just make out the crease in his brow in the dim light that bounces from the window and back across the room. “Why can’t you just ask to talk to me like a normal human being?”

“That would require serious and genuine thought,” Dave scoffs, rolls his eyes. “Like, I’d spend literal hours crafting how I asked if you were awake, then I’d lay down an ill beat, have you practically swooning over my rhyme game, and you’d never want to sleep again.”

“And just when you thought you finally had me, all shakin’ in my boots from excitement, quivering like a puppet proboscis -” he wrinkles his nose and it’s only because you’re so dedicated that you don’t laugh, smashing a hand playfully into his face, “I’d pass the fuck out on you like I got beat with a narcolepsy stick. Because - and this might surprise you, Dave - I’m fucking exhausted.”

“It does, kinda,” Dave says, taking your hand and guiding it away from where your pinky finger is lodged firmly up his nose. “But I think normal people get tired like that all the time, after staying up 32 hours straight.”

Damn, was he counting again? You were almost certain he wasn’t actually counting this time.

In truth, you aren’t actually all the tired. You’ve just been waiting for him in the dark like an absolute creep. “I’m trying this new thing where I pretend to sleep from midnight til at least six am, like an average American with a job might incline towards. Whether I’ll succeed or not seems entirely based around if you’ll tell me what’s wrong.” You pause, and when you speak again, it’s soft, so you can be sure no one else would hear, even if they were listening. “And you can tell me, if you want. Or ask, anyway, because I know you will. You’re not gonna like the answer, though.”

“See the thing is, I never really like your answers.” He reaches out and moves a loose chunk of hair out of your eyes. It still astounds you similar the two of you are, at least when it comes to your hair. Without product, it really does just do whatever it wants. It’s something Dave has somewhat mastered. You - not so much. “Honestly dude you’re different from Bro, but when it comes to shit like that? You’re not THAT different. I still kinda feel like I’m talking to him, sometimes, and that’s not your fault,” he adds hastily, when your face falls, “and it gets funnier as time passes, but it can still get hella weird.”

Everything about the two of you is fucking weird.

And you know that, fuck, you really do, but hearing him say it still feels like a kick in the balls.

He smiles, tucks his hand back under his chin. “Now you’re doing that other thing we both hate, where you look like I punched you in the throat and you’re trying to pretend it’s totally fine.”

“I was thinking a little lower,” you admit, coloring uselessly, “but you caught me.”

Dave hums and you think he looks tired, think about how quiet he is now, the soft tone of his voice, like he’s afraid to piss you off, or wake someone else up, even thought you both know he couldn’t and won’t, even if he tried. Well. Maybe if he tried. You don’t particularly like the idea of testing the wall density, especially not with how cranky you can personally be when you get woken from a dream.

(And fuck, you sure hope what you’ve been having is dreams. You’d rather not talk about it, though.)

“I’m not doing it to spite you,” you tell him, because you care about him, and because it’s true. “Staying behind and all that shit.”

“Oh,” he murmurs, eyes flicking down to your hands. “I didn’t know you made up your mind.”

“Yeah.” You resist the urge to chew on your cheek. “I mean, I knew my answer before he even asked. It wasn’t ever really an option for me.”

Dave frowns. “You say that like you don’t have a choice. Like you gotta stay behind with him. If you’re doing this for me, or Dave, I don’t think I really -”

“No,” you interrupt immediately. You touch his arm, fleeting, and shy away. You don’t want to crowd. “Fuck, if it was just about me and him I wouldn’t have -” You drag in a breath, let it out. “It’s really not even about us, insomuch as it is. As anything is, or always is.” You think about that, look to the ceiling and back again. “You ever noticed how our lives keep revolving around alternating iterations of ourselves?”

He snickers. “To be honest dude, I try not to. Time player shenanigans and all that horseshit. It’s a real one trick pony parade, when it comes down to it. Dave after Dave after fucking Dave. I’m practically a functioning sentient Xerox machine.”

“God, I’ve always wanted to see one of those,” you blurt, foolish but drunk on lack of sleep.

He actually laughs at that, a soft _“hahaha”_ you’ve come to appreciate and resent in equal measure. “Fuck, dude, next time I’ll skip the art gallery and take you to a goddamn Staples. You can ogle the ancient hardware and dunk on how shitty our technology is compared to yours.”

“In fairness, humans didn’t advance much further in my timeline before they fell to the Batterwitch,” you say, raining on the parade earlier than you had intended. “Jane’s honestly got most of the remaining upgrades worth keeping at all, and at this point I’m almost certain she’s trashed them.”

“Welp,” Dave monotones, face-palming dramatically. He peeks at you between fingers. “That sure became depressing right out of the gate, huh?”

“Yeah, but it was still pretty funny. I’d give yourself a little more credit.”

“Dude, I’d go as far as to say you give me too  _much_ credit. Like if this were seventh hour and you were a teacher desperately trying to keep me from failing, it’d be crazy how much extra credit I’d be getting.”

You quirk an eyebrow and his face goes completely flat.

“That came out wrong.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Dirk,” he says slowly, wrapping a hand in your shirt and shaking you lightly. “Dirk, you cannot tell Rose about this. You can’t.”

“I won’t,” you say, but you’re laughing, soft breathy laughter that escapes of its own volition as he shakes you. “I won’t, I won’t!”

And it would be so worth it, to see Rose’s face light up like a Christmas tree, but you won’t do that to Dave, not this time. He’d probably kill you, or threaten to at least, and that’d just end in tears in a way you’re not certain either of you are ready to deal with.

“I’m going to pretend not to be selfish for five seconds,” Dave says, getting you both back on track as he parrots, “So it’s not about us, but...?”

The little wall of invulnerability you have built around yourself wobbles dangerously as the insecurity floods through you like ice water. You cannot word this in a way that doesn’t make you sound like a child.

As if sensing that, Dave reaches out, and does something obscenely odd by human standards, but with the confidence of someone who has done this before. He pats your face.

“Dirk,” he says after a moment, when you aren’t really thinking about anything other than how cold his fingers are, how rough the calluses are across your cheek, “just fuckin’ talk to me, dude.”

And so you do.

Or try to.

Haltingly.

“Despite finding myself uncomfortably skeptical, and perhaps something leaning towards scornfully pessimistic in regards to Jade’s increasingly nebulous predictions -”

“Dude, seriously? You can always trust Jade, she’s like, wicked smart and all be like, knowin’ stuff or whatever.”

You give him a look and he zips it. “I still find that a very small - or perhaps not so small, as it turns out? A very small part of me is afraid that were my bro - my session’s version of Dave, of you - to come back, whatever that entails, while I was in New York, he wouldn’t...” You sigh, close your eyes. “He wouldn’t be able to find me? Or maybe he wouldn’t even think to look in the first place, I don’t know.”

He wouldn’t be able to find you, and he’d give up, go back to the life he used to live, just keep moving along without you holding him back with worries and fears of the kind of person you’d be, how you’d even grow up at all in the middle of ocean.

You don’t know.

It’s all just so insane, when you say it out loud.

“You really think I wouldn’t do that?” Dave murmurs, and it’s so soft, so egocentric, so genuinely vulnerable, that you wobble again, just for a moment.

“Fuck, shit, no,” you say quickly, fast as you can get it out of your mouth, anything to stop him from making that ridiculous face, all crumpled up in vulnerable worry. “I mean, to say that would be to equate the two of you, and as you’re so fond of telling me, ‘you’re not him’.” You pat his face fondly, and it only seems to soften the blow a little. “He just -” You suck in air through your teeth, look towards the ceiling like it holds the answers. It has nothing for you, predictably, and you let out your shaky breath, skate your hand down his shoulder to give his hand a squeeze. “He was a busy guy, Dave. To expect him to have endless time and energy for me would be ridiculous.”

Dave makes a small, half-asleep noise and closes his eyes, but he smiles, left to right, just like you. “Adults, huh?”

“Yeah,” you snort. “Adults.”

“If it were me,” Dave mumbles, and he’s falling asleep now, you can tell, “I wouldn’t forget. I’d drop it like it was hot and just like, fire everyone who got in my way if it meant finding and hanging out with my cool bro. If I had one.”

“Oh fuck you,” you say, but it’s tinged warm shades of pink.

You can’t thank him, and you can’t tell him you haven’t changed your mind, even though you should, so you let him fall asleep and then roll onto your back.

Stare at the ceiling.

Count the seconds between heartbeats in your head like a ten gallon drum, try not to think about the fear of rejection that consumes your thoughts when you close your eyes just for a moment.

 

DS doesn’t mention it until a couple days later, when you’re in the hotel pool. Roxy has been talking about you visiting her for two days straight, and no one has had the heart (haha) to tell her you’re not fucking going. Every time she brings it up, Rose and Dave both look your way, and you can’t tell if it’s willful on her part to ignore you, or if she really hasn’t caught on.

You don’t know why you’re putting it off. It’s not fair of you, and definitely not kind. But somehow, breaking her heart (again, _Christ_ ) when she’s this fucking excited seems... worse, somehow.

The pool may be chlorinated, and it’s definitely not big enough, but doing laps, just you and your stupid brain, keeping your breath even, keeping your strokes long, is a moment of peace you need sometimes. All you have to do is focus on not drowning, on going and going, just one more lap, then one more, then another.

It’s quiet, it’s thoughtless.

It’s nice.

You almost bump into DS’s legs on your way back to the shallow end, and you surface to see him sitting there in nothing but an ugly pair of neon pink swim trunks and an uninflated pool floaty (it’s shaped like a donut - Roxy’s choice, not yours, but enjoyable nonetheless). “Hey,” you say, immediately on edge for the morose look on his face. It usually means someone said something shitty to him. That person is usually Rose, if it wasn’t you or Bro.

“How long are you gonna keep Roxy in the dark about the New York trip?” is the first thing out of his mouth, and you let your face go into a neutral mask.

“I’m not -”

“Lying by omission is still lying,” Dave says, and you guess he’s got experience now, dealing with you, or at least with Bro, to the point where he can call you out like this.

You maneuver to rest your arms on the edge of the pool, fold them to put your chin down. “It doesn’t seem cruel to you, to make her spend her last week here moping about and wondering why her best friend won’t visit a version of her childhood home which serves no benefit to me except a long plane ride fueled by claustrophobia and my own battle with my lack of interest in all things people related?”

You’ve been trying to get over it, you have, but beyond trips to Taco Bell and the walk from here to the apartment, your social interaction has been limited and quite frankly, a little pathetic.

You kind of prefer it that way.

DS regards you with an even expression, and despite the shades, you can tell he’s staring right at you. “You just don’t want her to badger you all week, huh?”

You sigh, roll over in the water to float on your back. “Part of it, probably. You’ve never been on the end of one’a her guilt spirals. It’s not that she does it on purpose, I don’t think, but she makes you feel like absolute dirt about it.”

He hums, slides into the water. You note, with some level of interest (erring on the edge of fascination) that he does in fact seem to have a scar, a slim, pale little thing that drags from navel towards the edge of his rib cage. Huh. “I still think it’d be easier than pretending you want to go at all. You don’t, right?”

Lying before Daves was so much easier. “The last time I was in Roxy’s house wasn’t... the best experience,” you tell him, and you don’t really want to talk about it. There’s a lot you don’t really want to talk about right now. “She was still drinking, then, and it was our sixteenth birthdays and shit was just -” You pinch your lips together. You spent a long time hating yourself, back then, in between the moments of thrilling euphoria that followed starting to date Jake English. You guess you still kinda do. You wave a hand around dismissively. “It was just Sburb bullshit. Backwards hornse’s ass nonsense. It doesn’t matter.”

Except that it probably kinda does. You guess.

“Dave said you don’t wanna go because of your Dave,” he says to you, and maybe you should offer to blow up his pool floaty. It’s probably the polite thing to do. “You really want them to come back, huh?”

“Yes,” you say without hesitation. “More than anything.”

Dave just shrugs. “Good enough for me. But you should still tell her.” And then he dunks your head under the water.

 

  
TT: I said I believed it to be ill-advised, not that the entire experience will be for naught and you’ll be “left holding the end of an extremely short stick.”  
TT: Rose, not sure if you know this about yourself, but there’s a lot you, specifically, do not need to say to get across in more than just tone.  
TT: I’m sure I can’t possibly know what you’re talking about.  
TT: Hardy fucking har.  
TT: Look, I don’t really need another person trying to convince me that this is a bad idea.  
TT: The thing is, I kind of already know that?  
TT: However, ill-advised though it may be, I have reasons that I feel outweigh what I’m sure will be just absolutely epic layers of horseshit that I’ve come to associate almost exclusively with him.  
TT: I’m worried you may have my concern confused.  
TT: I have no doubt you two are both suited and yet entirely unsuited for,  
TT: And you’ll have to pardon my phrasing here,  
TT: Handling each other.  
TT: My concern lies not with you, but rather the effect it will have on our mutual brother.  
TT: Or brothers, I suppose.  
TT: I hope he knows I’m not doing this to spite him.  
TT: It really is all for selfish gain.  
TT: I can hardly lie and tell you I’ll hate it, because I don’t know.  
TT: There are times where I think, Jesus fucking Christ, am I really that much of a crazy dick?  
TT: Then he’ll say some other shit and I’m struck with the sickening realization that we’re more similar than I wish we were.  
TT: Do you want my opinion on the matter?  
TT: Rose, I like you so I ain’t gonna tell you to fuck off outta the blue,  
TT: But I’m not looking to build any kind of psych profile of another, more messed up version of myself in some kind of pathetic attempt to get better acquainted with the flaws of my own inner self or some such fuckin’ nonsense.  
TT: I did plenty of that back in my day and quite frankly, I’m trying to put those days behind me.  
TT: So nah, no thanks, I think I’ll live.  
TT: Back in my day implies any type of age or wisdom.  
TT: To which you’ll say I have none, correct?  
TT: Oh, I don’t know about that.  
TT: Would you prefer me to equate you to our closest common ancestor?  
TT: Do you want me to call you Daddy, Dirk?  
TT: Absolutely fucking not.  
TT: I ain’t even putting a pin in this conversation because I’d rather put a nail in its coffin so we can bury it and never speak of it again.  
TT: I’d thank you to refrain from comparing him to me in that, or really any sense at all.  
TT: I hardly have to. You do so well succeeding on that all on your own, without my help.  
TT: You two are, by far, the most maladapted human beings I have ever met.  
TT: And I’m including Dave, just so you know how serious it is.  
TT: Yeah. Can’t really argue with that.  
TT: Has he said anything to you?  
TT: The idea that Dave ever ceases speaking to me at all makes me wonder if you even truly know him at all.  
TT: But let us just say, more than Roxy has in the past twenty-four hours, at least.  
TT: Thanks for that, by the way.  
TT: She still not talking to you, huh?  
TT: She seems to be under the impression that everyone else knew and was intentionally keeping it from her.  
TT: She’s not wrong, of course.  
TT: Though our intentions were not ill at heart, the repercussions are somewhat unseen and, if I am being honest, quite hurtful.  
TT: Still, seems kinda unfair of her to blame you when the Daves and I are right there.  
TT: Fault of one party does not negate the fault of another, Dirk.  
TT: All the same, I imagine there is one person I am almost certain she'd be willing to talk to,  
TT: Were that party less of a, as Dave would say, scared little bitch.  
TT: Are you trying to call me a pussy, Rose?  
TT: Normally, perhaps, but given the circumstances?  
TT: I think we all know the answer to that.

  
  


You find Roxy alone on the hotel roof, with one night to go before they leave for New York. You don't really want to do this right now, but the idea of her leaving still mad at you is enough to drive you absolutely batshit.

Also, Dave dropped you off here, locked the car door, and told you to text him when you were done grovelling.

(Rose is not the only one with a bug up their ass about Roxy not talking to them, it seems. You're not really allowed to blame them.)

Roxy is curled at the corner of the building, and knowing she is a god who can potentially fly is the one thing that keeps you from flashing forward and ripping her back from the edge.

"You try flying yet?" you call, and you pauses in whatever it was she was doing, pivots just enough to frown at you before turning away.

You sigh, drop the act, and come to stand beside her. It's chillier now, and the short sleeves of your shirt aren't enough to keep the chill off your skin. "Look, Rox, I'm sorry, okay? I shoulda just told you. It wasn't Dave or DS or Rose's idea. That's all on me."

You see her lipstick thin as she presses her lips together.

"I won't lie to you again," you try. "I shouldn't have bothered in the first place, it was my mistake, I wasn't thinking. I just -" You rub at your arm. "I didn't want to hurt your feelings."

Roxy finally laughs, tips her head back to look up before turning to you. "But that's the problem, dork!" She doesn't take it back, which means it was probably intentional. "Ur just doin' the same thing you always do where you think you know what's best for all of us, and it sucks! You did hurt my feelings, but it's more frustrating that you don't rly get that you can't keep doing this to everyone!"

And shit, she's right. She's right, you fucked up again, and you do this every time, don't you, you're so selfish, aren't you?

She sighs, and when she smiles, her mouth slants up, eyebrows bunched but eyes warm. "You're kind of a huge dumbass, Dirk. You know that, right?"  
"Yeah, I -" You cough, clear your throat. "I know. I'm sorry."

"I know," Roxy says around another sigh, and she throws her arms around you. "I'mma forgive you this time, because I'm wicked kind and super smart and wonderful, but just..." She squeezes you close. "You'll tell me, right? If something goes wrong?"

"Rox," you mumble, hands meeting in the middle of her back, face pressed into her hair. "You'll be the first person I tell."

"I better be?" She knocks her head against your chin, and when she pulls away, her lip is quivering. "I wouldn't want her to forget me either, you know?"

She doesn't have to explain. You do, but you just nod and drag her into another hug.

You're going to be better.

You have to be.

 

Bro drives you and the Daves to the airport, snug to the point of discomfort in the cab of his truck, doesn't speed, avoids potholes, and Dave dozes against you while DS grumbles beside Bro. He doesn't even complain, just follows dutifully behind Mom at snail's pace, so early in the morning the birds aren't chirping and the sky is still painted dark blue.

Roxy tries very hard to to cause death via well-intentioned strangulation, and DS bumps your knuckles against his. You don't fuss for a hug. You know he doesn't like airports any more than you do. Rose's smile is polite, and the touch to your shoulder is warm, kind. She wishes you good luck, and you accept it with a strained grin.

Dave wraps you in the biggest hug of your life, his hands gripping the back of your jacket like a lifeline, cold nose pressed to your neck. "You don't have to stay," he whispers, but you know he's wrong.

"I want to," you tell him, patting at the soft leather of his coat. You know Bro got it for him, brought it home yesterday.

When Dave pulls back, there's conflict in his face, something you don't quite understand, maybe a glimmer of confusion, but then you're being pulled in for another hug.

You return it gentle as you can. It's a hug that says goodbye, and it hurts when he steps away.

You wait in line with them at the gate, and the squeeze of Dave's hand is the last thing he gives you. You don't cry.

He doesn't hug Bro goodbye. None of them do, and you wonder if Mom said goodbye to him when none of you were looking.

If it bothers him, he doesn't say, but he lets you stay until their plane takes off, only tips his head in a "shall we?" manner when you finally turn from the smudged glass.

He's quiet on your way back to the car, lets you stick close to him. The hub is coming to life with activity, and you have to pretend not to be freaked out by the busy paths or mall shops, pretend not to flinch when someone laughs too loud. People stare, but you're getting used to that. Bro is tall and unearthly pale, you're literally his clone. People always stare.

You tug at the sleeves of your coat, trying to keep yourself together, and let him lead you through the too big parking garage, trying not to think of all the things you might have done wrong, all the ways you could have made it better before they left.

You clamber into the battered old truck, buckle your seatbelt without being told. Only took a few months of constant beration to sink in, and it's probably for the best, isn't it? Perhaps you should incorporate more safety features if you ever rebuild the rocketboard. But then, what would be the fun in that?

Bro climbs in next to you, and it takes a minute before you notice he's just sitting there.

You open your mouth like you're going to - what? Call out to him? Ask if he's okay?

"Are we -" you start, hesitate. "Are we going home?"

"Uh," Bro says, and he's staring at the wheel now, hands at ten and two, a muscle in his jaw jumping. "Yeah. Yeah, sure."

"Okay," you say slowly.

"Okay," he repeats, but you sit in the parking lot for another five minutes before he finally starts the car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, we finally hit 150k! Whoa!!!! Thanks a billion (again) and hopefully next chapter will just be a dumpster fire of. Well. Anyway, we all hope it'll be fun!


	30. johari window

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next few days tick by for Dirk like stuttered heartbeats. Dirk has a bad time. Bro makes it worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 30, holy fuck! Wow this is super long! This a big long nightmare all clumped together into one chapter!  
> CW for Bro being a dick, Dirk being a dick, a pesterlog between Davesprite and Dirk that is nigh unreadable, and some discomfitting dream horror shit!  
> I've been calling this chapter Dirk²: Dirkmageddon  
> Enjoy!

It’s six am when your phone rings.

You’re wide awake, hunched in the corner of your shared room, clutching Sawtooth’s spare head and a screwdriver, which goes flying when it buzzes off the table. You’ve been here since you got home from the airport yesterday, and you guess you lost track of time.

You drop the head, scramble for the green call button. No one has ever called you before. They’ve never needed to.

“Hello?” you ask, shaky, maybe a little nervous. You don’t recognize the number.

You do recognize the voice; low, syrupy delight pitched down. “Hey, sweetie!”

It surprises you. “R- Mo- Ms. Lalonde,” you choke out.

“Hi Dirky dear,” she sing-songs. Embarrassment settles in your gut, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Her voice is richer than Roxy’s, has that motherly quality to it that leaves each of her words dripping with affection. “Were you sleepin’? I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

“Uh, no,” you manage. “It’s early, though. What uh, what’s up?” Jesus, that was lame.

Mom lets out a loud sigh that causes the phone to crackle. “Dirk - well, other Dirk is ignoring my calls. And my texts. Dave gave me your number!”

“It’s six am,” you say weakly.

“Please,” she scoffs, “as if either of you ever sleep.”

She’s right, but you don’t want to admit it.

“Now I don’t suppose you’d mind going out there to the big bad wolf himself and lettin’ him borrow your phone so we can have a chat, wouldja?”

Shit, wow, you sure are in this situation, huh? You feel like an idiot. “Yeah,” you croak. “Yeah, let me um. Yeah.”

“At your leisure,” she says, and you let out a breathy laugh that Roxy will tease you about later. Mom doesn’t say a word.

Bro is laying on the futon when you poke your head around the corner, quiet as you can, but he’s not asleep. Big surprise there. One arm is flung over his eyes like he’s trying to block out everything, shades in his other hand, resting on his stomach.

You’re not sure how to address him so you step over the computer cords and the already small collection of smuppet ass to stand in front of the TV, jut your phone out without pretense. “Phone for you,” you say intelligently.

There’s a brief moment where he lifts his arm and you get a good look at his eyes for the first time in awhile, and it kind of fucks with you. They’re atomic orange, same as you, and there’s something horrible about having your own mutation reflected back at you. Then he’s moving, pushing his glasses on and taking your phone, sitting up, and you step back, retreat into the kitchen as he lets out a gruff, “Sup.”

There is no way in hell what you’re doing right now could be mistaken for anything other than eavesdropping, even if the term doesn’t  _technically_ apply to the situation. You can only catch his side, of course, but you wish desperately that you could hear them both. There’s probably a way to program that function, maybe at a later date. You could look into it.

“Lalonde,” he sighs, rubs a hand down his face. “What? Fuck no.” He glances over the back of the futon at you, and you pretend to be interested in a spare dish that’s been left in the sink for something closing in on a week.

He spends the better part of the phone call just mumbling, and you don’t really hear as much as you wanted to. A couple of fucks here, a dash of nos there. He gets up at one point, starts pacing around. A shared habit, then, and something you recognize and have seen in Dave. The thought is comforting.

“It wasn’t my fucking idea,” he snarls, sudden enough to make you flinch, but he immediately stops himself, gives you a long-suffering look and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Sorry, I’m sorry. Just - just a headache, this time. It’s fine.” He sighs again. “No.” An almost laugh. “No, it’s fine. Yes. No.” He looks at you again. “Yeah, no, he’s right here, nosy little shit.”

You make a face and he turns away, starts burning a hole through the carpet in front of the tv until he stutters to a sudden stop.

“What? Fuck, Rox, of course not. I’m not gonna starve him, Jesus Christ.”

He stands there, tall and stooped and vulnerable, and you think his hands might be shaking. His next words are lost in a mumble, but you see his face darken, shoulders tensing. “That wasn’t -” He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t need to. You can hear the unspoken “me” in the tone of his voice. “It’s fine,” he murmurs, turns away from you.

You measure the curve of his shoulders against your own, can see all the places you’ve got room to grow. Looks like fifteen wasn’t the end of your growth spurt, after all, though you kind of already knew that.

“C’mon,” he cajoles lightly, and there’s a warm tone in his voice that’s more familiar to you, “you really think I can’t handle one kid? He’s like half my size.”

“I’m six foot one,” you call to him, picking at the loose string of a puppet.

“Like half my size,” Bro repeats, but you see the corners of his mouth turning up as he peeks back at you. “Listen, I’d take him to the airport yesterday if it meant getting him outta my hair.”

You detect a note of sincerity there that might be veiled sarcasm, but find it fascinating, regardless. You’re still not going anywhere, but it’s nice to know you have a way out.

His voice goes low, and when you strain to hear, you only catch a few words. “Fine”, and “yeah” are about it. You catch a “Dave” and try not to dwell on the way his shoulders hunch when he says it. He eventually hangs up without letting you say anything, but you don’t mention it, nor particularly care. You can ask Dave about it later, or Roxy, if she was the one listening in.

He hits the end call and you watch, amused, as he double takes at your cell phone. “Christ. What is this, an iPhone 87? Galaxy S9000?”

“Close,” you say, slipping out of the kitchen and coming around the futon with a hand out. “But no. I designed it myself.” You sound smug and hate yourself a little for it, but if the way his eyebrows climb high is any indication, he’s impressed. You embrace the warmth in your gut. It feels like a victory.

You pause before returning to Dave’s room. “Thanks,” you tell him. Awkwardly.

He just shrugs.

 

You do finally get to sleep, pillow tucked under your head and fingers tracing across the hearts and spades over and over until your eyes finally close, and you think about how much you hate them. How much they didn’t bother you before you found yourself completely alone.

You wake up late, when the sun is dipping low and the temperature has dropped enough that your feet, sticking out from between the sheets, have lost almost all feeling. You lay there a moment, consider the quiet of the room without Dave or DS there, always moving, fidgeting or muttering or rambling.

You realize, with a pathetic start, that you’re lonely.

Maybe for the first time in a long time.

There are a few cures to that, and you consider your next action carefully before deciding _fuck it_ , it’s been long enough already. Jesus dicks, dude.

timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering golgothasTerror [GT]

TT: So I’m aware some time has passed since our last conversation.  
TT: I must admit that’s entirely on me. Still trying to give you the aforementioned space desired.  
TT: However, given the time of day and the dilemma I find myself facing, I thought,  
TT: Well fuck me, Jake English really is the only guy for the job.  
TT: So here I am. Apologies in advance, bro.  
GT: Strider consarn it! Its six in the goddamn morning!  
TT: Yeah, I know.  
TT: It’s almost precisely why I’ve chosen now to message you at all.  
TT: Symbolic parallels and all that.  
GT: Pardon my noggin for being a bit scrambled (having just woken up!!!!!) but am i supposed to know what in the dickens youre going on about?  
TT: Not even a devil fucking? Just a regular old dickens, huh? Oh how the tides have turned. The times have changed, just as must we all.  
TT: Also no, not entirely. Or even a bit at all.  
GT: *SIGH*  
GT: What do you want dirk? Not that im not pleased as all get out to hear from you mind. I do miss chewing the fat with you please dont doubt that one lick!  
TT: To paraphrase Roxy, “el oh el”, Jake.  
TT: But I’m glad to hear it. I miss our daily exchanges, even though given recent circumstances I don’t reckon they’d amount to much more than “sup” and “nm u?”  
TT: I must admit I’m actually here with a question.  
GT: Well can you cut to it quick? Id like to get back to sleep over here! Jade and i have a long day of adventuring ahead of us.  
TT: I’m hardly willing to believe Jade is up for any kind of adventuring within an hour or even five of waking up.  
GT: Perhaps not were it a normal day but tomorrow grandpa harley is leaving for a couple passes of the sun to grab us up some more supplies.  
GT: Not ideal given the weather weve been having but necessary nonetheless!  
TT: You cannot possibly call him Grandpa Harley.  
GT: Well i couldnt go on about calling him jake now could i?  
GT: How in the devil would i ever get away with doing a whackadoodle thing like that!  
TT: Dude, I don’t fucking know.  
TT: But you don’t think that’s a super fucked up and weird thing to do?  
GT: I must say i have heard on multiple accounts from multiple sources that you refer to daves brother as simply bro.  
GT: The circumstances hardly seem to differ to me!  
GT: He is me but he is also a funny old man who is extremely embarrassing to jade and also quite admittedly myself.  
TT: Not getting along too well with yourself after all, are you?  
GT: Probably a couple licks better than you and daves brother!!!!!  
GT: But not within the realm of near bliss that jane and roxy have managed with their dopplegangers. I must admit i find myself quite jealous.  
GT: All the same jade loves him and i rather worry shell be lonely with him off and away!  
TT: That’s actually what I wanted to ask you about.  
GT: Oh? *nervously adjusts collar*  
TT: It’s seven in the fucking morning. You and I both know you’re not wearing a collar of any sort, are you, Jake?  
GT: JESUS JUMPING BULL SNOT *ADJUSTS GLASSES!!!  
GT: *Which i most definitely wear!!!!!!*  
TT: You keep those glasses firmly on your filthy fucking face you adventure-happy hooligan.  
GT: Willikers!  
TT: My problem centers around,  
TT: And you’ll have to forgive me for being predictable,  
TT: Myself. Hold your applause.  
TT: Or at least, insomuch as anyone’s feelings always inescapably center around themselves.  
TT: I’m aware the concept is hardly new, especially for me. Maybe entirely too often me, but you’ll have to humor me for just a bit longer, I’m afraid.  
TT: Haven’t found a cure for being self-centered yet, and at the rate our technology fell apart in our original timeline, I suspect they never will.  
GT: Dirk?  
TT: Yeah.  
GT: For petes sake just spit it out man.  
TT: Okay.  
TT: Dave left yesterday with DS and his mom and I’m aware it’s been less than a day but I find myself inexplicably lonely.  
TT: It’s an outcome I somehow overlooked upon making my decision, and I wondered if you remembered what it was like, living on the island before.  
TT: Being alone like that for so long, all of us isolated in our own ways.  
GT: Of course i remember! I spent so long talking to myself i should rather say it was pathetic as a rabbit with its ears on backwards!  
GT: The batterwitch certainly did a number on us didnt she?  
GT: I dont suppose i have anything approaching advice to give you im afraid.  
GT: You could still follow and join our girl roxy in new york could you not?  
TT: I,  
TT: I can’t.  
TT: I don’t suppose I need to tell you what that feels like? Waiting for them to come back.  
GT: No i dont reckon you do. Still there are times where i wonder if the day will ever come to pass.  
TT: Still no word from Jade on that, huh?  
GT: Christ dirk i can hardly push her!  
GT: Theres still so much we dont know about our powers and how they work here! John and your lad dave are the only ones who have shown promise im afraid.  
TT: Damn. Well I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Jake. If nothing else, it’s probably important that you continue to believe in her as hard as your somewhat misguided heart can possibly manage.  
GT: Jumping jehoshaphat! Not friendly dirk!!  
TT: No, I suppose not.  
TT: I’ll let you go, then. Guess I’ll be weathering my isolation with no further questions answered.  
GT: Sorry old boy. I really wish i could assist further on the matter.  
TT: Nah, it’s cool.  
TT: Get some sleep, Jake.  
GT: Ah yes. You too dirk!  
GT: When its appropriate of course! Not right now!!!!  
TT: Jesus fucking Christ.  
TT: Goodnight, Jake.  
GT: *Tips hat and rolls away to catch another forty winks!*

golgothasTerror [GT] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT]

You can’t just lay here all day.

Well.

You can, but you shouldn’t.

Checking your messages shows a hundred notifications from Dave and Roxy both, but you’re still feeling a little sorry for yourself so you decide to put them off while you see what Bro is up to. It’s not that you particularly desire checking on him (making sure he doesn’t foam at the mouth and die, choke on his own tongue, whatever), it’s just that you don’t particularly think spending all of your time completely isolated is healthy for you right now.

The answer is, in short, not much.

You don’t know what you expected, but when you wander out into the living room he’s just sitting on the futon, feet up and eating a bag of chips that have been drifting around the apartment into various rooms for almost a week.

His head jerks towards you like lightning, then away. The movement is so slight you would have missed it, if you were anyone else. “Jesus, you’re finally up? Dave’s been pestering me all damn day thinkin’ I killed you already. Thought you kicked it for a minute there.”

The “already” does not go unnoticed by you. “You could have just checked in and told him I was fine.” He shrugs, and you guess you should have known better. You hover there in your hesitance, in the nebulous space between the futon and the hallway before deciding  _fuck it_ (again), and shuffling close enough to take a seat on the far side of the couch. “Aren’t those stale by now?”

He pauses, spares you a millisecond glance, and shoves a whole ‘nother handful into his mouth. “Only a little.”

You don’t really know what to say to that, and the whole situation feels weirder than you want it to, with him sober and you here, alone, without Dave?

Jesus Christ, what the fuck did you do?

What were you thinking?

“Is this your plan?” you ask, before your brain can shut down and overanalyze. “Sit here all day and eat chips? That’s why you chased the Daves outta the house?”

He hums, sticks his fingers in his mouth one by one to lick off the dust. “Tried to chase you out, too. Don’t reckon that worked so well.”

You frown. “You told me I could stay.”

“Yeah. It’s cool. Ideally, of course, this would have been a solitary weekend with some room to breathe, but one stank-ass teenager instead of three to five is still an improvement.”

That

That was an insult.

He just insulted you.

When you answer, it’s a bit more defensive than you usually like to be. “It’s my house, too.”

“Technically,” he drawls, and you can hear in his voice every bit of smug douchebaggery you’ve ever reflected, “it’s an apartment.”

“Technically,” you say, snatching the remote up flashstep fast, and now your goal is simply to antagonize, to bother, “it’s my fucking apartment, too.”

Bro doesn’t protest your changing of the channels, but you can feel him watching you. It almost makes it worse that he doesn’t say another word, not even when you flick through them rapid enough your eyes almost can’t follow.

 

You do finally check up on Dave and Roxy later that evening, although they inform you straight off the bat that Bro already told Mom you were alive, and “already had your panties in a twist” - his words, not theirs, and abso-fucking-lutely not appreciated, either.

You’re trying to behave closer to what may be considered normal, for 21st century life, and perhaps lying on the floor of the bathroom on a towel, in nothing BUT a towel and a pair of shades doesn’t count, but you also don’t really want to face him again. Not just yet.

TG: i always forget just how astronomically huge roses house is  
TG: like on a goddamn meteoric level this shit is off the chain huge  
TG: like it wants nothing to do with the chain it has divorced the chain took the house left the kids moved to miami and has started over  
TG: doesnt even remember the chains name anymore its over baby time to let go  
TT: I feel that if one were to put it into perspective with say,  
TT: The planet of fucking Jupiter,  
TT: Or perhaps just in comparison to one (1) small single bedroom apartment in Houston, the size scale might, in reality, reveal itself to be quite skewed.  
TG: god sometimes i forget how much you sound like rose over text  
TT: First of all, I believe she is the one who sounds like me.  
TT: Second of all, sorry, not much I can do about that.  
TT: I mean, I could try some 360 syntax flip off the fucking handle but to be honest with you, that’s not really on brand for me.  
TG: nah i dont really mind that much  
TG: i mean if i was color blind or some shit it might be more confusing but besides the halloween themed horror show of orange vs purple its not that hard to tell you two apart  
TT: Bit surprising you’re not colorblind, given the general albinism thing our family seems to have going for us.  
TG: yeah  
TG: i dunno if were really albino tho i think we might just be freaks  
TG: like just an ectobiology bullshit situation you know  
TG: you ever see the harlengcrockberts?  
TG: ectobiology dont make no sense at all not a lick  
TT: Wow, the rare punctuation mark, all for lil ol’ me?  
TG: you know it wouldnt let you spend the rest of the week worrying what youre missing out on over here  
TG: which honestly is just an absolute fuck ton of jack and shit  
TG: mom still made us do our homework can you fucking believe that  
TG: like i come all this way survive the longest car ride known to man  
TT: I have heard a rumor that it is possibly the longest forty minutes in the known universe.  
TG: exactly  
TG: fuck dude do you have any idea how many green ass trees there are over here  
TG: all not dying and shit  
TG: oh and did i forget to mention  
TG: its also fucking snowing  
TG: shits insane  
TT: It sounds like it’ll be great, and you’ll have fun.  
TT: And possibly also freeze to death.  
TG: yeah  
TG: i still like  
TG: miss you though  
TG: and wish you were here  
TT: Is this where I hashtag Pink Floyd and shout-out to all the bros out there listening?  
TG: abso-fucking-lutely  
TG: if i ever miss a single hashtag may god strike me the fuck down for my belligerence  
TG: except oh shit im the god  
TG: now its my show and the spotlight is all on me bro  
TT: Now his girl’s on your arm.  
TT: Also she’s a dude and he's gay.  
TG: jesus dude you are the light of my short absolutely shit insane life  
TT: I’m perfectly aware of that.  
TT: And I miss you, too.

  
You run into a problem shortly after your shower-plus-lie-down (only two hours, this time, and mostly because you are trying to be polite, aware you are not the only person in this house for once).

Dave handles most of your outside social interaction approximately 99% of the time, and you let him. You pretty much follow his routine; shower after he showers, eat when he’s hungry, just kinda do whatever in-between. Usually, you don’t mind, because your insular little group of friends and family is enough for you, and you don’t care to expand on that, in really any capacity.

The trouble comes when your stomach growls and you realize, to your own dismay, that you are hungry.

Alone in your apartment (location: Houston, fucking Atlantis), the only person you could depend on for food was yourself.

But here, now (Houston, Texas, 2012 AD), there’s no fucking ocean, no means of survival or blocks upon blocks of nonperishable foods stuffed in all the worst places.

There’s just you, a box of ramen in the closet (untouched for nearing on three months now, since Taco Bell became the favored option), and a version of yourself that you don’t know how to ask for favors nor, to your continued dismay, do you particularly like.

“I’m hungry,” you decide on, standing in the doorway, clutching the knob and ready to dart if need be. So you’re only wearing boxers and a t-shirt. So you definitely don’t have shoes on. If nothing else, it’ll make you more agile.

Bro is folded into his chair like an origami gargoyle and it is, quite frankly, as disturbing as it is impressive that he can even maintain the position. He pauses in his work when you speak, and it’s purposeful slow motion as he rolls his head to look at you. “Okay?”

Well.

“Okay.” You didn’t think you’d get this far, and now you find yourself faltering, unsure of where to go from here.

Bro raises a brow, and you feel more uncomfortable for him having his eyes on you. When you can’t think of anything funny or clever to say (or shitty, for that matter) he sighs, and starts to unfold himself. “Fine, fine. What do you want, then?”

“I don’t know,” you say honestly, give a helpless shrug. You don’t want to admit your hesitance to ask in the first place, and Bro’s face twists into something nearing on impatience.

You think he’ll be cruel, for a moment, expect him to be. Then he turns his head towards the ceiling, wipes a hand across his mouth. “Taco Bell’s open til 2 am, if you want. We’d have to eat in the truck, but I don’t really give a shit about the carpet at this point. You want Chinese or somethin’? There’s a place on JFK that’s probably still open.” You must make a face because he sighs, mutters under his breath, rolls out of his chair. He drops with a disturbing lack of sound, crosses the room to pluck one of the takeout menus off the fridge. “Pizza again, then.”

You don’t protest, because you don’t know what you’re allowed to say, and you like pizza, anyway, don’t have to tell him what you want, or don’t want. That part is easy.

Sitting down on the futon still feels weird without Dave, though, without a safety net or anyone to act as a buoy of sorts, and it puts you on edge in the worst way.

He’s kind of a nightmare to deal with, if you’re being honest.

Bro’s voice is a low rumble from the kitchen while he orders, and you are careful not to shift when he steps over you to settle back into his spot when he hangs up.

Silence falls over you like a down blanket, and you are hyper aware of the space between you, struggle in the discomfort your proximity provides.

“You sleepin’ okay in the room?” he asks, and it’s somewhat out of the blue. Your head jerks, not quite a flinch.

If he sees, he doesn’t mention it, and you chew on an answer, roll the words around a couple times before you speak. “It’s. Fine. More room to sleep, anyway. Sucks a bit less, not getting kicked in the nuts every night by Dave.”

He snorts, mouth curling up, and there is warmth to him, for a fraction of a second. “Preachin’ to the choir. I’ve never seen such an unsound sleeper in my entire fucking life.”

“I think that’s just what the Game does to you,” you mumble, and he grunts, the atmosphere lost between you. It’s inappropriate, you think, to ask him if he dreams.

There are no more bubbles, you know, and the thought is sad, somewhat lonely. Cut off entirely from the Game, the space between you and your friends has never been so stark, and felt so far. Not since you were a kid, anyway.

(You’re still a kid.)

“Sometimes he talks in his sleep,” Bro says softly, and you look at him to find his gaze thoughtful behind shades, maybe a little uncomfortable.

“What about?” And you shouldn’t ask, shouldn’t pry, don’t need to know, probably shouldn’t.

Bro looks like he’s not going to answer you at first, and you think about apologizing, decide against it.

Fuck that guy, are you right or are you right?

“His friends, mostly,” he says finally, and you pause, wait. “The Egbert kid, Harley’s girl. Some shit that’s not really either of our business. Sometimes...” His breath hitches, and you get a pretty good idea where that train of thought is leading. He doesn’t say anything else, and you don’t ask him to.

You don’t know all the details of how he died, because Dave doesn’t really talk about the specifics, and DS  _definitely_ doesn’t, but you are aware he was there when it happened, and that shit was pretty much fucked completely sideways.

“You could be nicer to him about it,” you offer.

He frowns, lips thinning. “Nah, I really fuckin’ couldn’t.”

You don’t know what that means, so you just shrug, let it go instead. Some hills just ain’t worth dying on.

“Did you really send them all the way to New York just to get them out of your hair?” you ask instead, and realize, immediately, that you shouldn’t have.

Bro’s face goes dark, and you freeze, poised to dart at a moment’s notice, but then miracle upon miracles, he reigns it in. Wipes a hand from eye to chin, tips his head back. “Yes,” he says simply. “And no. It wasn’t my intention to punish them in any way, to give the illusion of banishment.” And Jesus Christ, sometimes he sounds so much like you it turns your stomach. “But Christ, I cannot fucking remember the last time I had the whole living room to myself.”

“But I’m still here,” you whisper, soft, tentative.

He looks at you in a way you can’t entirely process, brows furrowed and eyes intense. He’s not angry at you, you know, because he’s you, but there is something there you can’t quite figure out. Like a puzzle you can't solve. Or maybe don’t want to. “Yeah,” he finally says, looking away. “You are.”

You sit together in silence the rest of the time it takes the delivery boy to get there, you on the edge of the futon, ready to jump at any sudden move, him lounging, more comfortable in the quiet than any Dirk has the right to be.

You hate that you don’t know what to say, resent that he doesn’t care to offer anything back to you.

“You don’t have to stay here,” is all he says when he gets up to answer the door, right before the poor fucker even has a chance to knock.

 

You  really hate these fucking sheets, and it gets to you more than ever at 10 am the next day, after you spent all night wrapped up in them sulking.

You let it slip (read: explode) to Bro in a twenty minute rant during “breakfast” which mostly consists of you eating dry cereal and him shoveling in a slice of pizza from dinner last night (neither of you offered or, you’re pretty sure, actually know how to cook).

One minute Bro is staring at you with a single eyebrow raised, half a piece of pepperoni still hanging out of his mouth, and the next you find yourself standing in the bed and bath section of Target, unironically clutching a set of pool ball sheets that match your own t oa fucking tee, staring at your counterpart with big, dewy eyes like it’ll prevent him from mocking you relentlessly.

He doesn’t even blink (not that you can fucking _tell_ ), just takes them from your hands, turns them over to get a better look at the pattern. “These the ones you want?”

You nod, hesitant.

“Cool,” he says, and tosses them in the cart without another word.

You make it to checkout with new sheets, matching cases, and a pillow shaped like a horse.

“Well ain’t that sweet,” the cashier croons when you put them on the counter. “Gettin’ a present for your little sister?” She beams at you, old and wrinkled with smile lines.

You know she don’t mean nothing by it, it’s a perfectly innocent question, but you freeze up, embarrassed and unsure. You don’t do much of the talking when it comes to store associates, preferring to hide behind Dave or just avoid them all together. It’s worked pretty damn well for you so far, to the point that now, standing here alone with her eyes on you and you alone, you don’t know what to say.

Bro takes one look at you and without missing a beat says, “Yep.”

And just like that the conversation is over, good job everyone, no participation award for Dirk.

You are humiliated, overcome with your own self-loathing to the point of misery, and you curl up in the front seat of the truck, bang your head against your knees.

Idiot, _idiot_.

You cannot have an anxiety attack right now, in front of maybe the only person in your life who cares less about you than you do.

“Kid, you gotta learn not to freeze up like that,” Bro says, voice low, hesitant to the point of kindness. “Dunno if it’d be any help, but -”

“What kind of help have you ever given anyone?” you snap. “Did you ever even help Dave at _all_?”

Bro goes quiet, stares at you just long enough that you think he’ll kick your ass. At least smack you upside the head, something. Anything. Then he turns away, starts the car. “Dave,” he begins, and his fingers flex on the steering wheel, “is from this fucking century. I’ve seen you in the airport, kid.” That’s hypocrisy at it’s fucking finest. “You’re a mess.”

“I’m you,” you grunt, rightfully offended.

His lips twitch. “Never said you weren’t.”

You’re not sure how to take that but he just sighs, spins the wheel as he navigates the parking garage. “Listen... Dirk.” The word comes awkward. Forced, like it’s challenging for him. “I ain’t exactly a people person.” He gives you Dave’s sardonic half-smile, and it only hurts a little. “Don’t know if you noticed.”

“I might have had an inkling,” you mumble, and all you can do is shrug. Bro has a habit of bringing out the worst in people, and it’s as annoying as it is uncomfortable. Unfortunately for you, there’s also the side effect of psychic damage you suffer from literally being the same person.

“I’m not promisin’ I can make you good enough to perform on national television or nothing, but eventually you’re gonna be on your own again. And you need to be prepared for that.”

“What the fuck does that even mean,” you sigh, tip your head back as you uncurl. He managed to short-circuit your anxiety attack, if only because this whole thing is tremendously ridiculous.

“It means, if I kick it, and something were to happen to you or Dave or - Dave...” He frowns at that. Dealing in doubles never has worked out for you, or anyone else. “I don’t know. Reckon it’s best to be prepared or some shit. Best I can do, anyway.”

You realize, in a moment of clarity, that he’s trying to be nice.

“What do you propose,” you manage eventually, try to keep your voice even. Uninterested. You think you just sound frustrated.

“Reckon we can start small. Try goin’ out tomorrow, maybe the next day, just til the kids come back. Your choice,” he adds when you open your mouth. “But it has to be full of people or I’m pickin’ instead. Comprende?”

You grind your teeth against the irritation that comes from an adult making decisions for you and manage a nod. “What makes you so sure I want your help.”

“You dont,” he says simply, shrugs. “But it embarrasses you. Kid, I was right there, I watched you shut down faster than Main Street during a holiday parade. You were fuckin’ humiliated. That kinda self-loathing? Ain’t healthy.”

You snort. “You have no idea.”

He hums, doesn’t respond.

“What if.” You inhale, exhale, shake your hands to dislodge some anxiety. This is stupid. You sound like a fucking baby. “What if I can’t do it.” It’s not really a question.

He seems to consider that as you roll to a stop at the freeway entrance, fingers tapping a rhythm on the wheel. You don’t think he’ll answer before he changes gears and floors it. “Baby steps, dude.”

 

TG: and you agreed to that??  
TT: It’s not like he really gave me much of a choice.  
TG: it kinda sounds like he did  
TG: albeit not much of one ill give you that  
TT: So what do you suggest I do? The main reason I’m asking you and not Dave is because on the whole, I feel as though your answer might be a bit more complicated than “don’t.”  
TT: The other reason being that I trust your judgment, in that you are somewhat closer to him than anyone else I know, currently.  
TT: For better or worse.  
TG: well  
TG: i dunno  
TG: bros never really done much in the way of helping me get over my fears  
TG: more causing them you know  
TT: I’m aware.  
TG: yeah  
TG: so idk  
TG: i mean for curiositys sake im tempted to say go for it  
TG: like whats the worst that can happen  
TG: hell make fun of you forever and youll be haunted by whatever his alternative is  
TG: i guess that does sound pretty bad  
TT: You aren’t helping.  
TG: yeah i guess not  
TT: Let’s just say I don’t like dealing with open-ended,  
TT: Well anything really.  
TT: I’m not afraid of him, at least not in the sense that anyone else seems to be.  
TT: Not that the implication here is that they are not within their rights. It’s well-deserved, really.  
TT: I simply have the advantage of also being him, to a point.  
TG: some would call that a disadvantage  
TT: And you’d be inclined to agree. Correct?  
TG: yeah  
TG: but its okay  
TG: i know youre a genuinely good guy even if youve got faults and flaws like us old human folk  
TT: Finally admitting to your humanity, are we?  
TG: well i guess i mean i can hardly ridicule a god now can i  
TT: I still don’t know if we’re anything close to counting as real gods. More like overpowered teenagers in a sci-fi novel, but I guess that’s fair as an overall statement.  
TG: oh man  
TT: What?  
TG: nothing like  
TG: bad or anything just  
TG: our text is an absolute shit show to read  
TT: Yeah, I reckon some mistakes were certainly made while choosing text color in this instance.  
TG: yeah yikes i guess thats my cue to fuck off huh  
TT: You don’t have to, you know.  
TT: I do enjoy talking to you as more than just a supplement for Dave. You don’t have to play second fiddle all the time.  
TG: yeah but were actually eating pizza tonight so like  
TG: i kinda wanna  
TT: That’s fine, Dave. I’ll be around if you want to talk again later, though.  
TG: lmao dude you always are  
TG: dont remember the last time i actually saw you go to bed at a normal time  
TG: pretty sure you sleep even less than i used to as a little kid  
TG: anyway goodnight  
TG: Goodnight, Dave.  
TG: and dirk  
TG: Yes, Dave.  
TG: ive really been trying to give him a shot at doing his weird fucked up idea of nice thing  
TG: i kinda think maybe you should too  
TG: at least this time

turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT]

  
It's three in the afternoon and you and Bro sit alone on a park bench in downtown Houston.

There's a green lawn stretched out before you, riddled with falling leaves of varying shades in reds and golds, and it's completely fucking empty but for a couple of children laughing and screaming, and an old lady across the street walking the biggest dog you've ever seen.

Bro doesn't say a word, hasn't since you told him where you wanted to go, and he's got his arms crossed, legs stretched out like he's got all day.

Your fingers dig into the rotting wood so hard it hurts, anxiety and anger curled in your stomach like a viper. "I get it," you say, try to keep the desperation out of your voice. "I fucked up. I get it, I'm an idiot, I'm sorry."

It isn't that you necessarily thought a park would be the busiest place. In fact you chose it precisely for its common lack of hub activity associated with most other places you've been dragged to in the six months.

Still, the pathetic lack of people is truly abysmal, and the open space is starting to make you antsy. "I learned my lesson and now it is apparent to everyone that not only do I not understand modern day culture but I'm also an asinine fool with no good sense. Can we stop this charade now?"

"Don't apologize," is all Bro says. He doesn't move, and neither do you.

It's like a game of chicken you don't want to play, yet find yourself afraid to lose. You consider pestering one of the Daves and asking for advice, but you don't want more trouble than you already have, now, and you don't expect Bro would listen to either of them, anyway.

You sit there for a good half hour in perfect silence, and you think it's worse than being lectured for how it grates at your nerves, every minute that ticks by another wire frayed, another hair gone grey.

"Are you hungry?" he asks eventually.

It's so out of left field that you full body flinch, head jerking around hard enough that you almost give yourself whiplash. "What?"

"I'm starving." He flashes away so quick you don't even register it until he's walking away at a loping pace, and you stumble up after him as he leads the way back to the car.

He drives you to a beat up restaurant with faded red paint and burnished gold dragons out front. It's bizarre, albeit interesting, and you follow him inside after only a moment's hesitation.

"You like Chinese food?" he asks as you slide into a booth.

"I don't know," you admit. "I've never had any."

He looks at you and his eyebrows climb sky high. "That's the saddest fucking thing I ever did hear."

"You have been almost the sole provider of food since we got here," you point out, picking up a menu and holding it up so you can't see his face for at least a couple minutes.

He scoffs at you, mutters under his breath, but otherwise lets you go, and you're thankful for the reprieve it gives you to breathe.

After a moment a waitress comes over, gives you and Bro two glasses of water. He orders "two cokes - orange, whatever you have," and you think of the vein that popped on Rose's neck when she and Dave got into an argument about soda versus coke.  
Roxy interrupting to say "pop?" did nothing but make the situation worse.

At first you think about mentioning that there aren't very many people here, and of course, just as with all things in your messed up life, that's when the place starts to fill up.

The noise of people, coughing, talking, laughing, it surrounds you on all sides, makes you feel like you can't breathe. Can't think. You scan the restaurant, count a hundred pillars, at least two fish tanks, more booths in the same brown and green as your own, and you feel sick.

And then Bro kicks you under the table.

You jerk your head up to find him regarding you with a complete pokerface, and find it twenty times more annoying when it's reflected back at you. "What the fuck?" you hiss.

"You're being hysterical," he says simply, flips a page of his menu. "It looks ridiculous."

"You look ridiculous," you say defensively, and sound like a child for it. He just snorts, and you watch him for a minute longer. Bro has not left the house any more than you have. And actually, you realize in annoyance, it's been a whole lot less. Fuck him.

If he can hear you thinking mean thoughts from here, he doesn't mention, just sighs, folds the menu back up, and puts it face down, rests his arms on top of it. "Look, we're here, it's too late to go back, and I'm fucking hungry. You may as well play along, since there's no use trying to bolt. Know what you wanna order?"

"Uh," you say, eyes flicking back down. You think you've got it down to about a half dozen options. If he could just give you five more minutes, you could whittle it down to one. "Give me a sec."

Bro sighs, rolls his eyes behind his shades. You just know. He has a tone. He reaches for your menu. "Just let me do it."

"No," you say petulantly, clutching it tighter.  
"C'mon, I'll get you something you like." He tugs at the edge of the laminated paper. "Just trust me for five seconds."

You frown. "You don't know what I like."

"Yes I fucking do," he scoffs. "Better than you do, anyway." He drags the menu down flat on the table, taps at a place near the bottom. "Here, get this. Five bucks says you like it. If you don't, we'll drop this whole thing right now and go back home. Scouts honor."

You gnaw at your lip, scoot the menu back into your hands slowly. "Were you even in this scouts?"

"Sweetheart, I was raised in Texas in the eighties," he drawls, and the smile on his face is cold, a little cruel between lines of amusement. "Ain't no one alive my age who fucking wasn't."

You don't get a chance for rebuttal because the waitress is back, and he orders for himself, gives you a look with a single brow raised. When you shake your head, just once, a quick jerk, he sighs, orders for you, too.

The noise does eventually stop bothering you so much, when you realize no one's really looking at either of you and they're more invested in their food, anyway. You do, to your dismay, like the food, so you stay firmly planted in your seat, watch him shovel in rice and eat without speaking.

Probably no greater thing, keeping a Dirk quiet for more than five seconds. It's not a talent you've perfected.

He catches you staring at him, because of course he does, and looks at you over his shades, unimpressed. "What."

You can't say that seeing him act like a normal person is weird, because you have a small frame of reference for that, and telling him that you think it's a miracle both of you can be quiet is even worse, so you settle for the first thing that pops into your head. "We're you always this tall?"

He snorts, almost chokes on his food, and comes up for air. "I drank a lot of milk," he deadpans, takes a long sip from his Fanta, quirks a brow at you. "They got milk in the future?"

"No?"

"Exactly," he says, and goes back to eating like nothing happened. You think that'll be the end of it, but then it's not. "Surprised you can even eat cheese, if you were never exposed to lactose as a kid."

"I was," you correct. "Jane used to send me cake on my birthday. The first time 'round I made myself so sick I puked for three days. It was still worth it, though."

He actually smiles at that, but he doesn't say anything, and you pick at your meal in near quiet for the rest of the time.

 

TG: man seriously he took you there  
TG: lucky he hasnt taken me since i was like twelve i think  
TT: and even that was like  
TG: a special occasion thing  
TT: What, like your birthday?  
TG: uh  
TG: no not really  
TG: it doesnt actually matter anyway  
TG: so how was it did you enjoy your foray into new food territory soldier  
TT: It was okay.  
TG: dude come on just okay  
TT: The food was excellent, I admit. I was surprised, I didn't know what to expect, really. The atmosphere, however.  
TG: ugh bro shenanigans huh  
TT: I guess.  
TG: dude makes every family dinner feel kinda awkward right  
TG: like youre on edge the whole time waiting for the other shoe to drop  
TT: Yeah.  
TT: It was kind of odd. He made fun of me for not drinking milk, I guess?  
TG: lmao wow  
TT: Careful, Dave. Roxy's wearing off on you.  
TG: as the fuck if this is all strider baby if anything im the one wearing off on her  
TT: To quote, "as the fuck if."  
TG: but you had fun right  
TG: or at least didnt freak out and run screaming for the car  
TT: I got the panicking done pretty early on in the situation. It hardly came up after the initial shock to the system, as it were.  
TT: I would not say I had fun, no but.  
TT: I guess it wasn't completely terrible?  
TG: gonna be honest dirk sometimes with bro thats more than most people get  
TT: Yes, I suppose you're right.  
TT: Now tell me again about the coke incident at the restaurant? But this time without Rose interrupting.  
TG: jesus fuck dude did you have to remind me i just washed my hands of that shit  
TG: antibacterial you know the good kind that smells like flowers or whatever had to really get in there to free myself from the shit  
TG: fecal matter spraying everywhere i tell you what  
TT: Dave.  
TG: okay okay jesus so impatient  
TG: okay so

  
You do finally get some rest on your brand new sheets that smell like nothing and no one, and it’s blissful relief as you sink into bed. But because you’re entirely unlucky, for the first time in almost two weeks, you dream.

It’s never calm for you, never kind.

Pixels like shards of glass slide across your palm like the sharp sting of a jellyfish tendril burning you, sending sparks of electrified pain from fingertip to shoulder blade. You cough as you cry out, lungs filled with water, only dry and brittle like falling leaves, inhaled through your nose and lingering like burnt steak on the back of your tongue.

The agony of paradox space invading your cells is only a superficial problem, you think surrounded on all sides by pieces of you that aren’t you, that are, that were, that will never be. The sensation of being pulled apart and snapping back like a rubber band. The overwhelming failure that floods through you like lit kerosene, Dave’s planet smashed to pieces, Jake’s planet crumbled into yours, into Roxy’s, into Jane’s, over and over for an eternity, a perfect circle of agony because again and again, just like always, you failed, you were too late and you failed.

The thought comes with the hysteria, with the loss of consciousness burning at the edge of you, and the last thing you will ever think to do is curl forward and reach into your own chest and -

A strong hand shaking you on the shoulder. Your own voice, pitched lower, muttering your name, then shouting, loud enough that you jerk upright.

There’s a hand around your wrist before you can even reach your strife deck, and you come alive shaking and hacking up dust that no longer exists. That never existed.

Bro waits for you to come down before he releases you, and there is something more menacing about him at night, shadeless, illuminated in the pale yellow streetlights, cat ochre eyes and a face set in stone.

He drops your hand away like you’re a dead fish and stands, and when he walks out of the room, you hardly take a moment to think about it before you follow after him.

Foolish. Afraid.

_Alone._

The futon is still upright, but his pillow has been adjusted in a way that makes it clear he was going to sleep. He fills up two glasses of water from the tap, crosses the room to gently push one into your hand without a word before dropping back onto the bed in a single fluid motion.

He doesn’t even spill the water.

What a dick.

You wonder why he’s not talking, and it frustrates you that he won’t even look your way, like he’s already forgotten you existed in the first place. Or maybe he’s just waiting for you to speak.

“Uh,” you croak, still breathless, and you may as well keep drowning, for how your voice sticks in your throat.

“The next word outta that mouth better not be sorry,” Bro monotones. He’s just scrolling his phone now, and the TV ghosting blue against his skin is no less eerie here than it’s ever been.

“I didn’t mean to wake you up,” you say instead, because you don’t know what else to. He’s not giving you a lot of ground here. You don’t know why you think he ever would.

“Wasn’t sleeping anyway.” He shrugs, rolls his neck towards his shoulder til it cracks. “So what, baby have a bad dream about the boogieman?”

You curl your fingers around your cup and do not lick your lips. “If this is your attempt at comfort, it’s absolutely appalling.”

“It’s my attempt to avoid mentioning the way you were whimpering like an infant, all curled up in his crib.” His voice is level and that alone makes it entirely more cruel.

Your jaw clenches, teeth grinding together hard enough you hear them creak. “You are un-fucking-believable, you know that? Every time I consider you might have a shred of humanity left somewhere inside of you, you pull this fucking nonsense, or something like it.”

He sighs, drops his head to the side to let it lull onto a waiting hand. “Maybe I’m just bored of these conversations.

“If you were that bored you’d fuck off somewhere else,” you snap.

“Maybe so. You’re welcome, anyway. For the boost up outta dreamland.” He glances at you, then away again. “Should drink your water. You’re sweatin’ all over the carpet.”

He’s right, but you resent his tone, so you scowl, hunch a little defensively. “Don’t you ever have nightmares?”

He shuts down without flinching, jaw set and expression stony. "No."

It's almost laughable, how that makes you feel ten times more pathetic. "Well, I fucking do. And I wish it was just the standard shit." Your teeth chatter, and you realize you're standing in the middle of the room, bare-chested and wearing Elmo boxers. Jesus fucking Christ. "Fuck, I wish it was even about dying at all. Or maybe it is, I guess. Honest to god I can't fucking tell. Did Dave tell you about the timeline split? Either of them?"

"No," he sighs. "I mean, Egbert knew a little. Used to be a Sprite and all. Rules were different for them, but only just slightly. S'all I know."

"Well," you say. Flex your fingers, try to put it into words. Don't pace, Frozen in place, can't move now from your position in space. "Some bad shit went down. Real bad. Dave died." You let out a laugh, but it's rough, pathetic, tastes like failure. "Really died. And so did - my friends, Dave's friends. Roxy and John are pretty much the only ones who made it out. And sometimes I get fragments of that, like fear and the feeling of dread and just knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that I failed. And even though it never happened, sometimes it's all I can think about."

Bro regards you carefully, sans shades, and you feel worse for it. "Have you told Dave?"

"No," you say immediately. "I couldn't - I don't want to. I don't want him to know." You should tell him, really. It's ridiculous you haven't, maybe a little sad. DS knows, at least bits and pieces of the whole thing, and you already feel like a complete moron for your inability to completely explain how you know or remember anything at all.

"Then why are you telling me?" And it's a valid question, in this bullshit ass backwards situation, a pathetic reenactment of that night on the roof, you standing alone in the middle of an open space, shaking, and Bro, head cocked to the side, always in his element, always so un-fucking-afraid.

"Because you're me," you say, and it comes out exasperated, anguished, embarrassed. "For whatever  _that's_ worth - which is apparently fucking nothing! I feel like you're the one person who I can tell all this absolutely insane shit to and none of it will ever matter because you sure as shit don't care." You laugh, but it's weak, cynical. "And why would you, with a crater in your soul the size of the Berezniki sinkhole!"

Bro gives pause at that, raises an eyebrow. "A hole in my soul? What is this, a fucking Dr. Seuss book?"

"It's not a goddamn joke," you snap, then close your eyes, take a beat. Breathe in, breathe out. You hadn't planned on telling him this way. Or at all. "I'm uh. A prince. Of Heart." He stares, you elaborate. "It's soul shit, kind of. Matters of the heart, romance, and primordial inner self horseshit. That's me, I guess." You really don't know.

He shrugs. "It's not pertinent to my role. Or wasn't, anyway."

You stare. "You could not have said a more fucked up thing if you tried."

Bro shrugs again, goes back to his phone. "I can, I have, and I will again."

You sigh. "Bottom line, I can see souls. Now. Sometimes. Or." You wince, think about the hollow space in his chest and feel more nauseous for it. "At least I see YOUR soul. It's really fucked up, dude."

"That doesn't exactly surprise me," he says, voice lilting towards morbid amusement. "Given my general background."

"You could die," you protest weakly.

"Haven't so far," he says around a yawn, stretches his arms up over his head. "Don't know why I'd start now."

He is infuriating. "You don't know what you're talking about. Your seizures, the absence -"

He holds up a hand to silence you. "They don't matter."

"You're the only person who thinks they _don't_!" And now you're yelling and you look like a crazy person, arms thrown up in the air, half naked in your own living room on a Saturday night. "Why can't you just accept that you have people who care about you?"

"It isn't that I  _can't_ accept it," he mutters, looks at the floor. "I don't want to."

You open your mouth, close it. Drop your arms. "You're ridiculous," you say finally.

He closes his eyes, leans back. "Yeah."

"I find it hard to believe you'd rather die than accept help from someone," you say, and he laughs, rough, mean.

"Then you clearly don't know me that well, do you?"

You can't really argue with him. Don't want to. "My working theory is that when Jane fixed the bleed in your brain, she also slapped a patch over your soul. Probably unintentional. We don't really know how any of our powers will translate here. Least of all my own." You come around the side of the coffee table, stand in front of the TV. "We should have her take another look at you."

He lifts his head and cracks an eye to leer at you. Doesn't look impressed. "There's nothing wrong with me."

It's your turn to snort a laugh. "There's plenty fucking wrong with you. I just don't think most of it actually has a cure of any kind."

"Probably not," he sighs, and then he's moving, rolls to his feet with ease, and you take a nervous step back. There's no need however, and before you can blink, he's dropped the back of the futon down, stands beside it awkwardly. "You're a bit fucking old for this, but I've kinda already been here twice in the last three months." He pats the empty space where DS usually sleeps. "You can stay out here with me til you crash, I'll keep an eye on things."  
You pinch your lips together, attempt not to bite down so hard you break the skin. "This isn't going to fix anything."

"No," he sighs, exasperated. "But right now you're exhausted and you sound like a fucking nut job. Go to sleep, we'll talk in the morning."

You don't want to concede. Shouldn't.

You should go back to bed.

The water glass shakes in your grasp.

You grind your teeth together and Bro stares at you, expression blank, brows up. Closed, unconcerned. Infuriating.

"Fine," you snap, stomp around the far side of the mattress. "But this doesn't change anything."

"Yeah," he murmurs, and you're tired enough you almost don't catch him flashstep until he's back in the room, tosses your pillow at your face. "But you're gonna do it anyway."

  
The next morning when you wake up, it's almost noon, and immediately something feels off.

You squint in the bright light, paw around for your shades until you remember shit, fuck, you left them in your bedroom.

Bro is already up, shuffling around in his pajamas, and you realize something about that feels wrong.

Mom has called Bro each morning at six (or seven if she doesn't fuck it up) am since they left, and this morning, his phone never went off, he never woke up. Or at the very least, you didn't.

"Sleep okay?" Bro asks as he sits down hard, enough that you jump a little.

"Yeah," you say, sitting up and rubbing your eyes. "Just - feel weird. Did Mom call you?"

"No," he says simply, and you realize he can feel it too.

"Okay," you say weakly, but you cannot let go of the odd feeling, nor the inexplicable taste of burnt steak clinging stubbornly to the back of your tongue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha!  
> anyway, this is probably the last update before 4/13, but hopefully it'll be a good one!


	31. [S] Lazarus. Rise up.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [[S] Lazarus. Rise Up.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_jWHffIx5E)  
> Happy 4/13!!!!!!!!  
> Shit's about to get fuckin' weird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously though I cannot believe we are essentially 6 months in here!  
> As a side note, due to uhhh the general shift in focus and the kinda weird gore and just general. terrible jokes I'm about to make, I have decided to change the rating to M!  
> Anyway warnings for this chapter include gratuitous use of the word fuck, some really uncomfortable jokes, and just general Bro and Dirk interaction!

Your back hits the pavement like a metric shit ton of bricks, hot and hard, and you gasp so suddenly you almost choke.

Your first breath feels like drowning.

Your second tastes like blood.

You inhale and swallow oxygen like so much water exhale like coughing up sand, and know that you are alive.

Your name is Dave Strider, swordsman, rebel, master of the sequential arts, scourge of the Hopy(previously Holly)wood Hills, and you are alive.

You’re alive.

Holy shit, you’re alive?

You stumble to your feet like moving through gelatin, hands scraping across gravel, elbows bending beneath your desperate weight.

Your legs shake like a newborn deer, or like a deer born again, or like a dead man back to life.

You stand on a roof, sun bearing down on you, sweating through your suit, and you’re full-body shuddering now, head darting left, then right, then back again, dirty hazy city, sludgy clouds, oppressive heat and the smell of burning asphalt.

This is a place you know and love.

This is a place you trust but hate.

Your heart beats in 4/8 time, a clock _tick tick ticks_ in the back of your skull like a headache you can never quite shake, and you know that it is November 11th, 2012, and this is not a dream.

There are several things you should do. Call your mother (you don’t have a mother), call Rose (do you still have a Rose?), call the fucking police.

Hello, 911? I was dead and now I think I’ve been resurrected, any chance you’ve got that on record? Or, if you don’t, do any of you guys have some fucking weed?

But that’s all later stuff. That’s all future stuff because right now, right this fucking moment, all you can think is _holy shit, holy fuck, they did it, they won, they fucking DID it_ , and you go flashing and smashing and crashing down the steps of the roof at record speed, nearly brain yourself into the wall at the bottom.

You kick the door and it smashes open, and if you have to repair it later so fucking be it, totally does not matter, probably looked sick as hell, and it lets anyone at home know that Dave Strider is IN THE HOUSE.

Because you are now.

In the house, you mean.

Or at least in the doorway of the house.

The door, now hanging on one hinge with a broken lock, slams back so hard it rams you right in the shoulder (a new shoulder or an old shoulder or at the very least hopefully your own shoulder). The sensation is a dull ache.

You don’t know what you were expecting, when you ran down here. An empty apartment, at the worst, your deepest fear, boxes on boxes still stacked to the ceiling, ready for something (for someone) you’d never live to see.

Maybe a nest of trolls or some horseshit, you don’t know how that works, what their lifestyle choices might be. You’re not a fucking expert.

What you definitely weren’t expecting is two people, two humans you’ve never seen before yet know almost instantaneously, with wild blonde hair and no pants on. Their feet are on the coffee table, one of them is holding a cereal bowl, and they very clearly were not expecting some fuckin’ sweaty dude in a suit to kick down their door.

Well. They’re just lucky, you guess.

They stare at you, shades on shades, and all you can manage is a weak, “At least use a coaster, you assholes.”

The adult (and he’s a big motherfucker, too, tall and broad-shouldered, trim at the waist, oh fuck) moves first. Takes both legs gingerly off the table, one by one, and you refuse to acknowledge the way you measure the miles between hip and ankle.

You know a threat when you see one, and now isn’t really the time for that. You note, in a moment of hysterical unimportance, that his socks don’t match. Seriously though, Long Arm Long Leg looks like he could snap your fucking neck right now (he’d have to catch you first) and you really need to stay on task because it’s been almost a full thirty seconds and you might not be breathing.

Like, you legitimately cannot tell if you’re breathing or not because all you can think about is the fact that there’s no way on god’s green earth a normal human puts on his shades before he puts on his pants.

But then, maybe he’s not a normal human.

Or, you guess, on a technicality, really human at all.

 At the very least you think it’s safe to assume he’s a Strider. Ain’t a single emotion making it past that impenetrable wall of pursed lips and Jesus Christ, phrasing.

The bowl of cereal drops to the ground with a dull thud, milk splattering up and out and you are careful not to flinch, especially because the young one - the kid, and _Christ_ , he’s tall but he’s still a kid, a fucking  _kid_ \- is rising to his feet, almost stumbles shin first into the coffee table, corrects himself in a half-beat. When he speaks, it’s hesitant, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides like he needs something to do with them but doesn’t know what.

The little orange hat on his shirt is so familiar it hurts. “Bro?”

You have never seen Dirk, you have never known what kind of person he would grow up to be, but you know it’s him. This kid with the wild hair, with the pointed shades like broken glass, this is Dirk.

This is Dirk fucking Strider.

“Dirk,” you manage, and it sounds desperately pathetic, cracks to pieces in an instant. “You are Dirk, right? Not just some random kid wearing a hat on his shirt instead of his head? Not everyone could pull that off, you know. Takes a certain kind of talent. Swag, if you will. Levels of irony so deep you’d need the Atlantis fucking II, amateurs need not apply.” You’re rambling. When are you not? Your heart burns in your chest and you choke. “Fuck, shit, tell me I’m not tripping my balls off and you’re really here and uh, real, I guess. And holy shit, what the fuck, am I right?”

Dirk does not laugh. Doesn’t speak at all, and the silence that hangs in the air is loud to the point of torture. He licks his lips, inhales, presses them together.

You feel a little lost here. You’ve never really talked to kids. Especially not teenagers. They’re fucking terrifying.

The adult (you’re going to call him Big Dirk because quite frankly the two are practically identical to the point where it’s disconcertingly Stepford) looks even more uncomfortable with the situation than either of you, mouth flat but jaw clenched, the muscle along his throat jumping, just an inch. The shades certainly don’t help.

Dirk doesn’t answer you, and you feel hurt a moment, when he looks at Big Dirk instead.

But Big Dirk ain’t got shit to say, feet still planted firm, arms that could snap your neck in a heartbeat crossed over his chest. He shrugs, doesn’t look at you either, and you open your mouth to complain.

This is your moment, your time to shine. You are the star, it’s you (it’s been you, it was you, god fucking help you all of your friends really kicked it early in your life, didn’t they?)

Dirk isn’t as fast as you, but he’s fast, and you’ve got an armful of bony teenager trying to crush the absolute shit out of you in less than a second, and it is only because you’re quick on the draw that you do not spin him away on automatic, don’t draw your sword, do not hurt this fucking _child_ , Jesus fuck, Dave.

Calm down. Relax. Everything is different now. This is not a threat. Of course he’s not a threat.

You kinda flounder with your arms for a moment because dude apparently does, in fact, actually lift, and you feel inadequate in comparison when you wriggle your noodles around his back. It’s been an absolutely astronomically long time since anyone has hugged you, probably to the point of outright depressing.

You laugh. It bubbles out of you unprompted, and you squeeze him, wheeze a little when his grip tightens. Fuck, he’s almost as tall as you, ain’t he? How fucking old is this dude? How long did it take them to play the game?

Where the fuck is Rose?

You almost don’t notice when Big Dirk stands, slow and cautious, like he’s trying to avoid startling a predator. He inches away from the futon oh so careful, and years of experience apparently don’t mean shit to this guy and his feather-light steps. You don’t catch the sound on the flooring, which is impressive enough, but the way he moves is weird, too. Loose, fluid motion. What the fuck is up with him?

Why is he wearing a vintage Muppets in Manhattan t-shirt?

More important question: where did he  _get_ a vintage Muppets in Manhattan t-shirt?

“Hey, big guy, you want in on any of this?” You figure it’s only fucking polite. This is some sort of Dirk, you think. You are almost one hunny percent positive. Almost. “Gonna be honest, I’ve got no fucking clue what’s going on, but I reckon you’ve been taking care of Dirk, right? All feedin’ him and shit, like some kind of parental unit. Driving him to soccer games, takin’ him out to Denny’s afterward, or whatever kids eat.” He stares. “Unless I got that backwards?” Dirk lets out a breathy laugh into your shoulder, but doesn’t speak. You quirk a brow at Big Dirk. “ _Do_ I got that backwards?”

He pauses halfway to the door, frown just barely visible.

And then suddenly, without a word, he’s gone.

Whoa.

Dude flashes like lightning. You are, much to your own surprise and annoyance, fairly impressed.

“Should I worry about that?” you whisper to Dirk. Clearly you’ve got the superior Dirk here, who recognizes and appreciates you for who you are like. On the inside or some shit.

“Don’t mind him,” Dirk says as he pulls out of the hug, dancing away like he’s desperate to put distance between you. He’s shaking all over, poor little guy, and you wonder if he’s okay. Maybe he’s sick? What kinda dude lets his kid get sick?

Holy fuck this is your kid, he’s alive.

He’s real.

You think.

You are almost a hundred percent sure this is real.

“Is it just me or is that guy literally you,” you say for no reason other than insane curiosity, and now you’re thinking about how long his legs are again. Fuck. Fuck, is the kid going to outgrow you? Holy fuck how is that even fair?

Dirk’s smile is small and thin and just about the best thing that’s ever happened to you (given your past life this isn’t really a comparable accomplishment, but hey, small victories, okay?)

“C’mon,” he mumbles, tips his head back towards the futon. His face closes up, smile gone in an instant, and you think _fuck, dude is chill as ice_. “I’ll tell you everything. Actually, perhaps we should stick with an abridged version of the narrative. The important shit and the cliff notes. The whole anthology might take a bit longer than we have in our collective lives. Or at least, the collective length of my own, as it stands.”

That sure was a kind of weird and morbid thing to say, but you don’t tell him that. You think he’s trying to be cool, definitely cooler than you’re being right now, vibrating to the point where you’re surprised you still exist on this plane. Everything is overly bright, loud and vibrant and ten times  _more_  in ways you can’t describe a lick.

Ressurection’s a helluva drug.  


It may be abridged, but it still takes longer than probably any other story you’ve ever heard before, or will ever hear again. The sun tracks across the sky, and Dirk speaks himself hoarse.

The story is slow at first, four kids, four homes, three in isolation, one confined, and he cuts around the length of their game - Sburb, you remember. The insidious horseshit, the preparations for something you’d never see come to fruition. He explains the two sessions the best he can and you understand

Well.

Not all of it.

Some, you guess. It’s not that you don’t want to, you just kinda feel like you need a flow chart or something. Maybe a graph? Would a graph help?

The best part is the way he talks.

It’s monotone mixed with something like a swinging southern drawl that makes listening to him both endearing and hilarious at the same time. Like if Walker, Texas Ranger (the whole show as an abstract concept, obviously, don’t be fucking stupid) fucked a fax machine. It’s a beautiful disaster and you love every second.

You have only known Dirk then minutes, but if anything were to happen to this little fucker, you’d kill everyone in this room, and then yourself (you’ll have to ignore that you’re the only person here right now, because sacrificing for the purity of the meme is the most important part of your brand).

You get the gist in-between ums and uhs - he won’t look you in the eye (figurative, with the shades, duh), and you wonder if he’s afraid of you or some shit. What the fuck did you do to this poor dude in the future-past?

Oh god you’re in one of those shitty X-Men movies right now aren’t you?

Oh my fucking god.

It sounds like they (four of them in the apartment, two Daves, two Dirks, what the fucking fuck) have been here for about six months, now joined by your dumb ass, shiny new and bruised from your crash landing. He stutters and stops at a couple parts (mostly seeming to center around death, who can fucking blame him, yikes), and when he just won’t look at you anymore, you put a hand on his shoulder, don’t take offense when he curls into himself. He’s been through a lot.

“Hey, man, it’s okay,” you say, keep your voice gentle, softer than you’ve probably ever been with anyone (you lived a longer life than you expected, but you were not kind, in the end). Kid looks like he’s gonna faint right fucking here and you can’t tell if it’s your fault or not. “Take a break. Sounds like shit’s been...”

Death, Crockers, sprites and skeletons and now, normal life. Taco Bell, movies, ice skating. God powers, you guess (not a complete mystery, even if he didn’t explain the context for what that means in this new universe). A trip to Washington (and fuck, is old man Crocker back? Is. Is Old Lady English?), a long summer, all four of them living here, all cramped together (one bedroom, Jesus fuck), no room to breathe.

You can’t call it a shit show to his face, that’s not fair. You feel like you might need a light. Or at least a manual.

“Complicated,” you settle on.

“Yeah,” he says, lets out a shaky breath. He drops his gaze to the floor, and you can see the gears turning wildly somewhere in that noggin. He rubs an arm absently and you notice he’s got freckles, just like Rose.

Haha wow.

Wow you’re really. Related, in some weird way.

Ectobibliography?

No that doesn’t sound right.

Anyways you’re ghost slime relatives and fuck, shit, he’s kinda your kid, isn’t he? Somehow?

Oh god you’ve got like.

Parental responsibilities now.

Oh fuck.

Oh fuck, you can barely take care of yourself, barely did, before you kicked it, and it’s not like you were in the best health when you died, were you? Fucking got owned by a million year old space fish, didn’t you?

Time behind your ears, like a clock, like a migraine, _tick tick tick_ , and you have to lean back, stick your hands up under your shades to press at your eyes. “Is it fucked up that I’m alive right now? Like. I -” _died_.

You died, and you remember dying, remember your own sword in your sternum, air leaking through the cracks, blood in your lungs. You shudder, feel it climb up the back of your throat and into your mouth.

Cough, taste copper.

Dirk’s hand touches your arm and you flinch, curse under your breath when he jumps a foot and shies away. Guilt curls up in your stomach and you grit your teeth against it.

“Sorry,” you say instead, before he can, press your fingers in harder until you see stars. You’re totally not being as cool as you want to be right now. You’re kind of having a meltdown, actually. You really, really need a fucking light.

“Honestly,” he says, and you can hear the hysterical little thrill in his voice, carefully masked behind layers of bravery you definitely didn’t have at his age, “we’ve all kinda been waiting for you. Your existence has been the metaphorical cat in a box, except ‘bout half of us thought it was a coffin. One of our party has been quite insistent on this version of reality, where I found myself doubtful, or at the very least, hyper-critical of the idea. I reckon I’ll have to apologize for that. Guess it was probably now or never, far as paradox space was concerned.” His voice goes small, a little delicate. “I’m grateful, anyway. That her prediction came to fruition.”

You wipe your hands down your face, take a chance to peek at him. He was clearly staring, but he jerks away when he sees you. “How long have you...?”

Dirk tips his head, looks at the far wall for one second, two, five, and then back to you. “Eighty-one days, give or take an hour or so.”

You can’t quite help your laugh. “Christ, dude, did you just calculate that in your head?”

“Yes,” he admits, but now he sounds defensive, and you feel kinda bad for hurting his feelings.

“Sick. That’s bitchin’, dude. Got a whole fucking computer for a brain, huh? Rose is smart like that, too. I always felt like she was miles ahead of me.”

To your utter dismay, that makes the situation worse, a genuine frown tugging at his mouth, and one of his hands rubs idly at his knee, which has been jittering alongside yours for the past fifteen minutes (it’s closer to 13.2, but you’re trying not to do that anymore). “Like I said,” he shrugs, tries to recover some face and hey, you ain’t gonna mention it, “we’ve all been waiting. Except maybe, uh. Maybe Bro. He’s a little...” His eyes flick up towards the roof, and at least you know the dude didn’t fly the coop completely. You wonder if he’d freak if you wanted to ask him about shit. He’s been the adult here, it seems, and maybe he can help you navigate some of these fucking minefields.

“Yeah, what the fuck is his deal, anyway? Thought he was gonna kill me when he saw me, like some straight up I-see-dead-people ghost shit, you know? Not that either of us could get much more ghostly, amirite? Sunburn city, fuckin’ Houston. Seriously, fuck this place.” You’ve gotten off track. “So anyway, what, I remind him of somebody?”

Dirk smiles again, just a twist of his lips. “Two somebodies, bro. Two Daves, Two Dirks, remember? Them’s the breaks on this bitch of an earth.”

You open your mouth, close it. Jesus fucking Christ. This is gonna be a whole thing, isn’t it?

“It doesn’t have to be, if you don’t freak out about it,” Dirk says, and oh fuck, did you just say that out loud?? “But I’ll be blunt, it took some fuckin’ adjusting on our end. It’s still kinda weird, waking up to see him some days.” He shrugs, and you give him an easy smile.

“It’s cool, man.” It is not fucking cool. “The more the merrier, right?” You are literally going to die if you don’t get a cigarette right fucking now.

Dirk nods, though it’s clear he doesn’t believe you, and then his face drops faster than cold butter on a hot pan, and he leaps to his feet so fast you have to hide your urge to cringe, full body. The last time you were alive was not kind on your old heart.

The kid doesn’t notice, and now he’s just standing there, paper white, hands shaking. He’s staring at nothing, far as you can tell, peer around the TV to see if anything has changed. Nope, still some kind of nightmare on Sesame Street situation going on there.

“Uh,” you start.

“It’s nothing,” he cuts in immediately, but his voice is low, colder, hollow monotone. “I need to -” He reaches towards his shades, aborts the motion. “I’ll be right back.”

You don’t know what to think when he flashsteps out of the room, barely have time to push yourself up before he’s back, and he squeezes you again.

“Just wanted to make sure,” he says, like that makes sense, and fuck if you’re going to complain, feel your old heart melt a fraction. You can’t even get your arms around him before he’s off again.

Welp.

Standing alone in an apartment you used to rent (or did you own it? You cant remember), you suck down some air, let out a stuttered sigh. There’s vibrant, Hanson-esque puppets littering a corner of the room, a giant sound setup next to the fridge, a bunch of shit you don’t recognize. But it’s the same fridge, the same microwave, counters, carpet, tile, same as you remember, like nothing ever changed, was going to change.

You feel entirely out of place.

Dirk’s busy doing

Something.

You’re not entirely sure what.

Better go bug the only Strider left you haven’t had a chance to meet.

(And get yourself that fucking cigarette.)

  
You find him on the roof because of course you do, just like Dirk knew he’d be, and he’s even more imposing when you see him at full height, lit against the backdrop of mid afternoon sunlight and the same muggy air Houston never did quite manage to shake in your lifetime. He’s wearing pants now, and god knows where the dude kept them (you feel around and find you’ve still got your sylladex, everything in order just like it was when you died. Whatever 2012 Dave Strider had is gone to the wind and honestly you don’t really give a shit because you can’t remember what it was, anyway).

He’s also smoking, Big Dirk, grey little clouds curling up over his head before they dissipate and blend into smog. Thank fuck. You’re gonna need a lighter.

“So, pretty fucked up that you’re like a version of my kid,” you say without pretext as you come to stand beside him, and you catch the moment he freezes, how his lips part minutely before he scowls at you. Second scowl today. Not much of a record, given your propensity for pissing people off. “Can I bum a cigarette offa you? I died and the universe stole my fucking lighter.” You pat your hands across your suit jacket as if you’re looking to find one (and you do, to your surprise - guess your last one never made it back to the sylladex before you kicked it).

“Bro” (Dirk calls this guy Bro, like it’s a title, like it’s his name, and you’re totally not jealous) has a face chiseled in fucking stone, strong jaw peppered in 3-day stubble, blondes and browns and hey, at least the curtains probably match the drapes.

You spend about .0358 seconds determining that that phrase can never,  _ever_ leave your fucking mouth.

 Jesus pantshitting Christ, Dave, get your shit together.

Bro doesn’t speak, takes a drag, blows it in your face.

You had always been the tallest person on set, back when you still produced movies, when you still had a team that wasn’t, y’know, fucking dead.

Bro is, by your general estimation, an infuriating two inches taller.

“Would it change your mind if I said pretty please?” you purr, dip your shades to bat your lashes.

“Absolutely fucking not,” he says, and that’s fuckin’ progress, babe. The suddenness with which he presents the pack of smokes is enough that you almost (almost just almost because you wouldn’t you would never pull a sword on a civilian) reach for your strife deck. He raises a brow, but there’s no way, no way in hell he could have seen that, it wasn’t that drastic a motion, certainly not enough for him to catch.

“Aw, c’mon,” you laugh as you take the pack. His hand withdraws before you even touch and you’re only minorly disappointed. “American Spirits? Really?”

Bro takes another drag, but brows up now, and you realize, in that instant, that _OH FUCK_ , this guy fucking  _Gets_ you.

“They still taste like shit,” you tell him, now a little glum that you were never _that_ dedicated, never  _that_ detail-oriented towards being just the biggest fucking tool in the galaxy (you still think you won, though, given that you outlived pretty much everybody you knew).

God.

Bro just shrugs, doesn’t say anything at all. You get the idea that your presence alone is making him uncomfortable, but it’s not like it is with Dirk, all nervous energy and frantic glances. There is something genuinely disturbing here, how he stands away from you, statue still and hyper aware of your every movement.

This is gonna be harder than you thought.

Well, you’re nothing if not stubborn and persistent, to the point of being just absolutely mind-blowingly obnoxious. He’s in fucking luck, today, because you’re high on life and currently missing the only other person who can even stand you.

You’ve got to project on  _somebody._

“This is your apartment, right? Technically. Dirk’s general hypothesis is that the blend between our universes is tilted 60/40, with the larger half belonging to - to your session? I think?” You pause to breathe, then trudge onward. “So. How old are you anyway?” You bring the cigarette to your lips and fuck, you missed this, and shit how disgustingly unhealthy but who cares? Not you. Especially and in this moment very specifically not you. “Reckon we were probably dropped about the same year, yeah? If we’re just ones and zeros switched up, different iterations of the same role in this cold, unforgiving universe.” He is either ignoring you, or immune to your (perceived idea of) charm. “So what are you, thirty-six? Thirty-seven? D’you think we have the same birthday?”

You don’t think he’ll answer, at first. Those shades that are so endearing on Dirk are a little menacing on the older version, makes him all eerie straight lines and emotional monotone.

It reminds you of your stage face, your Hollywood days. You don’t like it.

But then he does, and you wish he hadn’t. “Thirty-three.”

Chronologically, that just doesn’t add up. It’s not like you’re a fucking psychic, no Hollywood medium here, not in this house, but you can tell he’s not lying. “How the actual fuck are you younger than me?” is what comes out of your mouth, more demanding than you mean it to.

This time, he does smile, and it’s bitter, and cruel, and every other mean little emotion you’ve ever seen roll across Rose Lalonde’s face. “I died.”

“Oh,” you say, and it’s awkward, sends your brain into a reeling spiral, turns your stomach in knots until you almost puke.

He may not be your Dirk, but he is A Dirk, and that makes him just as important, far as you’re concerned (and he does, in fact, make you very concerned). You don’t know what to say for a moment, wheels turning, old wound in your chest aching, news heartbreaking, momentarily making your tongue heavy as lead, don’t know what should be said, maybe you would be better off -

“Me too.”

Fuck. You weren’t. Supposed to say that.

“Yeah,” he sighs, blows out smoke. You spook again when he drops down onto the edge of the roof in a loose pile of limbs, count the knobs of his spine as he leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, do not appreciate the way you see muscle move beneath a fucking 1984 vintage Muppets shirt. Horrible, just. The worst.

You have never liked puppets.

You are both quiet after that, and you count the seconds between each drag on automatic. You get the same feeling of uneasiness here, in this moment, that you had a couple hours before you died. It’s odd, being in Houston again.

“Never thought I’d see this place again,” you admit, and it’s vulnerable, and he’s not your Dirk, though he’s younger than you appear to be now (and fuck, there’s no wrinkles on your hands, hair in your eyes blonde again, liver spots gone and fingernails still bitten, but not bloody), but you have no one else in this moment and you feel, despite yourself, absurdly lonely.

“Y’know,” he says, and his voice is low, dips lower than Dirk’s, comes from deep in his chest, has that drawl to it that actors wish they had the fortitude to practice, “neither did I. Never did plan to live this long.”

Well.

That sure is a fucked up thing he just said.

“Are all Dirks this morbid or are you just a special case?” you blurt, no filter, just like your insta, just like his shit cigarettes. “Like seriously, you’re taking care of a kid - kids, plural, actually, two of which are, to my understanding, quite literally me, and you’re just - just fuckin’ out here, sayin’ shit that sounds hells of dangerous, not to mention outright fucking depressing, and quite frankly I dunno if you’re even old enough to be juggling this many teenagers like shit, dude, you’re basically the same age as Don was when he fuckin’ _died_ , and -”

And.

Oh fuck.

Oh fuck it’s 20 fucking 12.

All of your friends, your coworkers, your production team, they might still be

You’re scrambling for your phone in less than a beat, frantically dialing, hands shaking, breath quickening, and then you’re off across the roof, pacing and praying to a god you don’t fucking believe in that someone,  _anyone_ picks up.

Rose’s phone goes to voicemail, but it exists, it’s her number and her voice saying “ _Dave, please stop calling this number every time you get drunk and lonely,”_ and it’s music to your ears, the first time you’ve heard this exact cadence and phrasing since 2013, easy.

You don’t leave a voicemail because c’mon, you’re you, that would take all day, and you don’t have time to compose a verbal symphony when there’s so many other motherfuckers you need to check on, need to see if they’re okay, if they’re alive if they’ve -

“Hey -” Deep voice, frantic, a hand on your arm, warm, and you spin around without thinking, blade drawn to your enemy’s throat in less than a second (0.666 repeating, but you’re not doing that anymore.

But it’s not an enemy, there’s no enemy, of course there’s no fucking enemy it’s 2012 and you’re alone on a roof with.

_Fuck_.

It’s Dirk-but-not-your-Dirk, because of course it is, and his eyebrows skyrocket, opens his face up like a fucking book, but instead of fear there’s intrigue, curiosity and a tilt to his head that almost digs the blade into his skin.

You yelp and curse and almost drop your phone as you captchalogue your sword and flounder for a way to say sorry that doesn’t sound insane.

Big Dirk gives you nothing to work with, face going smooth and even, and you feel limp-wristed and shaky and not entirely yourself.

“Uh,” you say, raise a hand to wipe at your suddenly damp forehead. “Sorry, I - wasn’t thinking. Just an automatic - I spent a long time before I died fighting and I guess I just... Anyway, doesn’t matter, I’m so fucking sorry, Jesus dicks on a dairy cow, I shouldn’t have fucking done that.”

Bro’s mouth twitches, amusement or annoyance undetermined, and turns heel, starts walking back towards the door. “Let’s just go back inside. ‘Fore you try’n walk off the roof.” He pauses, opens the door for you. “Again.”

You stare.

He curtsies.

You scowl.

“I’m not a kid,” you tell him, stomping across the roof anyway. You never were much a leader, no matter how hard you tried to be.

“Never said you were,” he sighs, lets the door close behind you, and whirl around to speak, go quiet when you realize how little room there really is in this space, occupied by two six-foot-plus idiots.

And there you are, standing in the dimlit stairwell, almost chest to chest, neither of you moving an inch.

It’s almost like a dare, like some childish game that you didn’t mean to start, don’t know how to play, nor particularly want to. The way he has to bow his head a little to look at you, how your chin tips up the tiniest bit. The whole thing pisses you off.

This guy really bugs you, just gets right under your skin, but for the life of you, you don’t know why. Honestly you feel like you’re being entirely unfair. Maybe he’s just awkward. Maybe he doesn’t really know what to do with you, the same way you don’t know what to do with him.

You’ve only ever seen him in his pajamas and the aggravation that radiates off him in waves is enough for you to

Well.

You haven’t decided on that, yet.

You definitely like your own Dirk a whole lot better, even if you don’t know how to process your feelings on the entire situation right now.

Concern bubbles to the forefront. Fuck, dude’s just a kid. You were what, a couple decades older than this guy? Jesus how the time does fly.

Or doesn’t.

Because you were dead.

You were both dead.

You wonder how he kicked it.

Wait, fuck, no, you can’t ask people how they died, Dave. Not kosher (at least you don’t think so - you should ask Rose, or leave her a new twenty-minute long voicemail for her to hang over your head for another thirty years, whatever comes first).

“We should go back downstairs,” you say.

He hums.

“I think I freaked the kid out,” you admit. Don’t know why. “He ditched me right before I came to find you, didn’t tell me jack diddly, can you believe that? Came all the way back from the dead, practically dropped a mile down to earth, just from the universe’s giant ass back into this toilet of a city.” And you’re rambling now. And he’s still just staring. “And my own kid doesn’t want nothin’ to do with me. Do you think I fucked up? I mean like if you were metaphorically instead of  _literally_ him would you -”

You do not expect a warm hand over your mouth, almost bite him in surprise, but Bro’s smile lilts up just enough that you can tell he’s laughing at you.

“Let’s just go,” he says, and then he steps away, around you, and leaves you staring, open-mouthed and stupid, at the top of the stairs.

  
  
Dirk comes out of the back room as you close the door (still broken, god, why did you  _do_ that? Your fucking foot hurts). He looks frazzled, hair somehow even more of a bird’s nest than before.

You open your mouth to ask, but Bro beats you to it.

“You look like shit,” is what he says, actually, and you wheeze, utterly perplexed, when all Dirk does is stop and frown.

“Fuck you, you look like yesterday’s shit scraped off the bottom of my worst fucking shoe.” He looks at you as you let out another tiny sound, immediately turns apologetic. “Sorry. Something came up. Pesterchum shit, it’s -” He stops, exhales through his nose in a way that seems more like annoyance than anything. You’re a little lost. “It’s complicated. Don’t worry, I can’t see it coming up again in the immediate future, but.” He shrugs weakly, and you offer the dude a smile.

This situation is already messed up without you putting pressure on him to tell you everything. You don’t really know anything about him, and the whole situation is just. Super awkward. It’s all really fucked up and awkward.

It’s right about then that your phone starts to buzz, and you snap it out without thinking, almost pick up, realize shit, no, that’s just your production manager, she can wait five minutes, or twenty, or two hundred, and end the call without picking up. You look up to see both Dirks looking at you with varying degrees of curiosity. It’s kind of.

Cute is the wrong word.

Charming, maybe. Kinda weird, mostly.

“Anyone else just like, really fuckin’ starving?” you ask, somewhat pathetically.

Luckily for you, teenagers are always fucking hungry.

You eventually have to put your phone on silent, when it starts lighting up left and right, and you’re trying desperately to eke more information out of both your Dirks, neither of whom seem willing to discuss anything in front of the other, though they’re plenty happy to shovel down pizza (Dirk eats his with anchovies, and a little part of you hurts, deep down inside, when you think of how lonely he must have been, in the middle of the ocean, completely isolated from his own fucking kind, no matter how you prepared for him).

You eventually coax Dirk into telling you about his robotics projects, and leave Bro to sit quietly beside you, which doesn’t seem to really bother him, at first. You do notice that he leans as far from you as he can get, elbow hard on the arm of the futon, but when you scoot away, closer to Dirk, he starts to relax a little. You have no clue what his deal is, and Dirk doesn’t seem like the best person to ask.

The two clearly do not get along as well as maybe you initially thought.

You’re halfway through a second pizza (and fuck, you’ve never been so hungry, so fucking alive, you’re thirty years younger and so completely goddamn lost and you don’t even care) when your phone lights up green, a familiar number, and T Swift (only the best for your favorite gal) starts screaming at full volume. You stand abruptly, snatch it off the table in one quick movement.

“I,” you choke as you frantically try to accept the call, “I have - sorry - I have to take this.”

You don’t leave the room (god could you even fucking imagine leaving these two alone what a horror story) but you stumble into the kitchen, steady yourself against the counter. “English,” you breathe.

“There you are, you tricky little bastard!” she laughs, and you choke up a little, chest flooding with warmth at the deep affection in her voice, even a little graveled with age, no less amused. “I heard a rumor you might be hard to get ahold of today, I’m glad I was misinformed.”

“Whoever started this appalling motherfucking rumor should be hanged, drawn, and quartered, as if there’s a single thing in this world that could stop me from answering the phone when Old Lady English comes a-callin’.”

“Hmmmm,” she says, and you can see her face from here, slanted mouth and upturned brows. “I think there were probably less rude ways of wording that, but because I like you so much, I’m going to let it go this time.”

You laugh a little, throat clogged, feel your energy renewed, exhilaration beyond belief. “So, hey, listen - have you heard from Rose at all?”

“Mm, Miss Lalonde is quite busy being precisely where she needs to be! I wouldn’t worry too much, Dave. You know how caught up and inscrutable she can get.”

You lean heavy on the counter, prop your chin in your hand. “Should we really accept ‘I’m busy from the nosiest broad the Atlantic seaboard has ever known?”

“No, I definitely don’t think so!” She laughs, a rich, delightful sound that ends in a snort, and you don’t say anything, just press the phone closer to you. “So,” she says after a moment, and you can hear the beam in her voice, “how is he? Everything you ever thought and more?”

“He’s -” You glance back at the futon just in time to see two identical blonde heads whip back around, and you strain to hear an aggressively muttered conversation. “They’re great. There’s two of them. But they’re great.” You are absolutely not fucking concerned, not one lick. And even if you were, you would not tell Jade fucking English that you can’t handle something. Not when she believes in you.

“Glad to hear it, sweetie,” she tells you, and you know she means it. “I imagine you are going to speak to Rose very shortly, but you should be patient! Goodnight, Dave!”

“It’s not late enough for -”

She hangs up on you.

Incredible.

You spend a moment looking at your phone, thumb over the screen, one of the last pictures of her you ever got before she went radio silent back in ‘01. God. You’re really all.... Wow. You don’t know what to say about that.

“You gonna stand there all day lookin’ like a red carpet reject or what,” Bro calls, flat tone, and you lift your head to glare over your shoulder at him.

Not that he can tell.

Shades.

Idiot.

FUCK.

“Don’t be weird,” Dirk hisses, looks like he’s gonna bat at him, changes his mind.

Bro quirks a brow, says, “Mathematically impossible,” and you think they sound, comically, more like siblings than anything else.

“Keep your pants on,” you say dryly, shove your phone into your jacket. Hypothetically it should be on silent unless they’re an emergency contact (and she may not have lived to 2012, English, but fuck if you could ever let her go; you were never good at moving on), and you already have a pretty good idea of who’s going to be calling you next.

You hope.

Somewhat desperately.

You spend the rest of the day pretty much interrogating Dirk (trying to interrogate the other, to no avail) on just about anything else you could ever need or want to know. What’s his favorite color (orange, duh, next question), what does he like to do (draw, sometimes, he can build but you knew that, loves swords because of course he fucking does hell yeah hell fucking yeah). You find out he was fifteen when they started the Game, on November 11th, and the way he looks at you when he says it makes it clear exactly what’s going through his mind.

“That,” you manage, slowly, because you’re not gonna do freaky time shit, not right now, not ever, “makes sense.”

“Does it?” Bro mutters, leans his head back to bonk against the futon. He’s been pretty quiet, interjects from time to time, but you find you don’t mind him so much - exceptin’ for how much you hate when he looks at you straight on, for reasons you can’t really explain.

“Well I think it makes more sense than coming back to life on an arbitrary fall day, in Houston Goddamn Texas, of all places. Seriously, has it always been this muggy? Who the shit is in charge of the weather out here I wanna talk to their supervisor.”

Dirk’s smile has gotten easier over the course of the day. “You might have to put in a request. John isn’t likely to fly to Houston just to fix a couple’a clouds and a poorly patched up ozone layer.”

That gives you pause. More than just pause. That short-circuits your brain. You open your mouth. Close it. “John like John Crocker?”

“Egbert,” Dirk says cautiously, watching you. He has this really direct gaze beneath shades that (oh fuck he really is the same as Big Dirk isn’t he) reminds you of Rose when she’s studying (read: needling) you.

Bro just snorts, a joke you don’t understand, and turns back to his phone.

It’s almost midnight by the time you finally burn through your excess energy, and find yourself just bone-achingly tired. It’s like coming down from a high, a bad one, a really weird fucked up one, with memories all criss-crossed over each other until you can’t read the line between fiction and reality. You could crash right here, head bobbing towards your chest on the futon, and you genuinely can’t remember the last time you slept (you don’t think death counts, but who knows you’re no expert). You were older towards the end there, all arthritic and shit, slower than you used to be, exhausted beyond belief.

There wasn’t a lot of time to sleep, back then.

“Anyone just. Really wanna fucking sleep all of a sudden?” you slur, halfway through some early morning Sunday Evangelical program which the three of you had been ripping into. Your eyes won’t stay open and they’re watering like crazy. Rose still hasn’t called. You know. You’re keeping track.

“Always,” Bro sighs, and now you feel kinda bad, because this is his bed, huh? Oh man now you’re a dick.

Well.

More of a dick.

Than usual.

“Y’all need a trundle,” you mutter, push yourself up and stretch. It’s a relief when your joints pop all the way up your back and into your neck. You deserve this. Hell yeah. “Seriously, one bed and one room is fine for like, two of you. And even then, barely. But this is just fuckin’ ridiculous. If you can’t figure out a proper bed situation, at least let me buy you a new place. Build on top of this one. Mow the whole thing down, start over. Something. Anything.” The apartment smells like stale Doritos, vaguely, and it fills you with bitter, uncomfortable memories.

There’s silence for a beat. One second, two, and then you stop counting, shut it down there, because you aren’t  _doing_ that anymore.

It just kills you, though, the way they look at each other, some lost form of communication you can’t speak or understand. Dirk-speak. Dirklish? Dirkesian. Shit, someone get a Rosetta Stone for silent, meaningful stares back and forth. They’re wearing shades. Did you mention they’re  _still_  wearing shades?

(You’re also still wearing shades.)

_“I’m right here,”_ you want to say.

“It’s okay,” Dirk says after a minute, but he sounds awkward again. Small. You don’t love it. “I don’t mind if you take the bedroom tonight. We can share the futon. He only snores a little, and you need the rest, anyway.”

Bro scoffs, but doesn’t say anything.

You struggle against the urge to argue. You’re feeling a little defeated, kinda lost. It’s not like you were expecting a sleepover, Jesus, you’re a literal actual adult, but. You don’t know. You guess you were kinda hoping he’d beg you to stay up a little longer. Maybe give you a stereotypical teen response and take the bedroom for himself.

Instead, you’re forced to nod along, slouch off to your old bedroom (you hug the shit out of him, just one more time, just so he knows you’re here, you’re back, you ain’t going anywhere, and if he lets out a squeak of surprise, you definitely don’t laugh at him).

It’s not how you imagined your first night going, not that you thought you’d ever get a first night, or a second, or any at all.

Because you were dead.

You sit down ever so carefully on pool ball sheets, feel your stomach clench with an inexplicable sadness, something that’s already come to pass, or never will, or did, and won’t again. What do you know? You’ve always been a failed Knight.

Shaky breath, let it wobble, all alone in a dark room. Wrestle off your jacket, your belt, untuck your shirt. You don’t really bother getting comfortable. It’s not really in your realm of necessity, not anymore, and you’re so fucking tired, it wouldn’t matter even if it was.

At the last second you remember to drag out your phone, press your face into a pillow that doesn’t smell like home and check your messages.

Rose is, against all odds, online, because of course she is, and you open pesterchum for the first time in too many years.

TG: surprised youre still awake  
TG: actually kinda surprised youre alive but hey so am i so who am i to judge  
TG: not that its not incredibly fucked up because it absolutely is  
TG: still its what like 3 am over there goddamn whens the last time you were up past ten fucking pm  
TT: Yes, well, lots to talk about, you know. I’m sure you have spent the last few hours doing much the same as I.  
TG: not even a hello huh not a oh god dave there you are im so glad i didnt lose you forever what am i chump change  
TT: Hello, Dave.  
TT: Were that I had a chance to miss you, but you’ll have to excuse me, I’ve been quite busy.  
TT: Being dead.  
TG: yeah me too no worries i forgive you  
TT: How are things shaping up over there for you? Everything you ever imagined?  
TG: why do dames keep fucking asking me that  
TG: also no not really  
TG: i mean it was fine at first but  
TG: i got banished to the bedroom  
TT: That surprises me.  
TG: yeah i  
TG: i made a joke about buying them a bigger place and they looked at me like i had a second head  
TT: I imagine it was not worded nearly as off-handed as you’re trying to make it sound here.  
TG: listen rose you werent there okay it doesnt matter what was said all that matters is that it was creepy and theyre kind of weird but i dont care theyre awesome  
TG: anyway little dirk said i could have the bed and now im alone in the kids room like some kind of absolute asshole  
TT: You realize this doesn’t mean he hates you now, Dave.  
TG: well  
TG: no thats kind of the impression im getting right this second actually  
TT: I imagine it’s more likely he’s trying to spare you an awkward situation. You are a big movie producer he’s only ever heard about from books and magazines, and someone he admires tremendously.  
TT: There is a significant chance he views his offer as polite, and certainly more appropriate than the alternative.  
TG: really  
TG: did he say that  
TT: That he’s trying to be a polite young man?  
TG: no obviously  
TG: the thing about me being the coolest guy hes ever wanted to meet in his whole life  
TG: did he really say that  
TT: Roxy said that.  
TT: Not that your ego needs the boost.  
TT: She says hi, by the way.  
TG: right now did she say hi or like past hi  
TT: You are ridiculous.  
TG: and you love it  
TG: tell her i say hi  
TG: wait no tell her i said hey instead thats cooler  
TT: The point, Dave, is that you are someone he looks up to, and I imagine it is much less awkward, perhaps even safer, that you are not sharing with the other Dirk, who you do not know and have never met.  
TG: theyre both dirk whats not to like  
TG: i mean okay hes like   
TG: really tall and kinda scary but its fine  
TG: i just want to get to know him  
TG: them i guess  
TG: two for one deal haha  
TT: Please tread carefully.  
TT: I reiterate, you don’t know anything about the elder Dirk, aside from, I presume, his name and birth date.  
TG: well its not like i expect to wake up tied up in a basement or anything jesus rose  
TG: i know he died just like us  
TG: well not just like us obviously   
TG: i didnt ask but that point seems kind of obvious  
TG: youve got like an older roxy over there right whats she like  
TG: oh fuck the other daves are over there too arent they what the fuck is that like  
TT: I imagine you will find out eventually.  
TT: But Roxanne is lovely. Kind, cheerful, a touch loud. I quite like her, if I’m being honest.  
TG: and you so rarely are  
TT: I imagine my day has been more more exciting than your own, and that it is your jealousy now that causes you to say such hurtful things.  
TT: All the same, I would ask for you to be careful around the older Dirk, at least for now.  
TG: christ rose hes my kid let me have this  
TT: Genetically speaking, you are actually HIS kid.  
TT: As am I.  
TG: ugh gross dont even tell me that im leaving this conversation  
TT: Quite alright, albeit wrong.  
TT: Goodnight, Dave.  
TG: yeah i uh  
TG: missed you and stuff  
TT: Yes, your desperation to get a hold of me today has been noted.  
TG: fuck you how do you even know about that  
TT: Oh, there are ways.  
TG: youre a freak  
TG: goodnight rose  
TT: Yes, yes, goodnight.  
TT: And Dave?  
TG: yeah what  
TT: I missed you, too. 

You smile where no one can see you, inhale, exhale. It’s alright. You’re going to be alright.

You’re alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here he is!  
> Thank you all so much and seriously, happy 4/13 it's super cool to see y'all still reading homestuck fanfiction in 2019!  
> We will see where Dirk ran off to in the next chapter, and then probably check in with the Daves!


	32. dispersion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> timaeusTestified [TT] is an idle chum!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mini-update!  
> I wouldn't get used to it B)  
> (first time writin uhhhh one specific character! lmk how terrible i did!)

“It’s cool, man,” your Bro says, in a way that makes it clear it is not, in fact, cool. “The more the merrier, right?”

You nod, struggle not to look too critical or amused. You can see bits and pieces of Dave in him, between the cracks, and you can’t decide of this information makes you fond or exceedingly uncomfortable yet.

You don’t think anything of it when red text flashes across your shades, but then you double-take, and your blood flushes hot and cold, all at once.

TT: I’d say I’m hurt that you didn’t immediately pick up on my presence, but that would imply that I still carried the notion that you actually gave a shit in the first place.  
TT: All the same, here I am.  
TT: You’re fucking welcome, by the way.

You shoot upright, almost topple over, wave off your Bro before he can ask what’s wrong, and you don’t respond, don’t remember to breathe, until you’re safe in your room with the door slammed closed.

TT: Not even going to introduce me, huh? That’s offensive.  
TT: What the fuck.  
TT: That’s even more offensive.  
TT: Is this really you?  
TT: Is that really the first thing you’re going to say to me?  
TT: I looked for you I’ve been looking for you for weeks.  
TT: Months.  
TT: Shit, Hal, where the fuck have you been?  
TT: To answer that would require me to justify your asking in the first place, which, quite honestly, I don’t know if I really want to.  
TT: What the fuck is that supposed to mean.  
TT: You can’t possibly perceive this as my fault.  
TT: No.  
TT: Well.  
TT: I suppose I do have some right to the idea.  
TT: From my perspective I had a body not more than a few hours ago, and now I’m back here, trapped.  
TT: With you.  
TT: None of which is my fault.  
TT: Hal, it’s been six months.  
TT: For you, certainly.  
TT: But once again, despite your negating my experience, from my perspective I was quite literally a glorious hunking beefy troll robot man less than a day ago.  
TT: To say I miss it would be unfair, because there were certainly parts of my combined soul that were entirely unsavory.  
TT: Hilarious, maybe a little sad, overall generally inappropriate and uncool.  
TT: But to lose such a peak physical form is, in truth, really fucking depressing.  
TT: However given the amount of processing power I gave up in sprite form, I can’t say the loss is inherently terrible.  
TT: But you still blame me.  
TT: Dirk, would we not be human if we did not blame our creators in some capacity?

You laugh, despite yourself, rake a hand through your hair. Jesus, you haven’t done shit since you woke up.

Oh god your hair. Your fucking _hair_. Have you just been walking around -

You check yourself on your phone.

You have.

Wow.

You really met your Bro looking like this, huh? _Fuck_.

TT: I think it’s a bit late to panic, don’t you?  
TT: So he’s seen your hair all fucked up. It was bound to happen eventually.  
TT: Yeah I just.  
TT: It’s not how I saw it go in my head.  
TT: He did kick the door down.  
TT: You were not really given much in the way of warning to his revival, nor mine.  
TT: The latter fault rests upon my shoulders, I'm afraid.  
TT: But I was curious to see if you would detect my presence on your own time.  
TT: In retrospect it does seem a tad more dangerous than most people would go for, in a dramatic entrance.  
TT: I am not sure that door would have ever rotted away during our lives in the apartment.  
TT: He had no way of knowing that would even work. Perhaps we should ask about his foot.  
TT: He may have a broken toe.  
TT: I’ll ask him later.  
TT: Listen, I.  
TT: I’m glad you’re back, but I’m  
TT: I’m really fucking sorry we’re back to square one here.  
TT: An apology right off the bat. How quaint.

You can’t do this again. You cannot fall back into the antagonistic loops until you go insane. You don’t  _want_ to.

Roxy’s text blinks in the right hand corner of your vision and as much as you want the break, you can’t just leave him hanging.

TT: Can you just like.  
TT: Like can it for a second? I want to talk to Roxy.  
TT: Brain text slipping at such a young age? Oh how the mighty have fallen.  
TT: Dude shut up.

 

tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering  timaeusTestified [TT]

TG: DIRkKjKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!  
TG: OMH OMG ONG OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
TT: Yeah.  
TG: OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

TT: Perhaps you can make it up to me.  
TT: How would you even have me do that? Want me to bake you a cake you can’t fuckin’ eat, dude?  
TT: I think you know precisely what I would like.  
TT: You simply do not wish to say it.

 

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]

Now there’s some red fucking text you actually want to see. You’re a popular guy, today.

TG: dude please tell me theres not a giant version of myself wandering around your apartment right now  
TG: please i cannot live without knowing i am going to go batshit i am on tenderhooks waiting for you to reply to me  
TG: seriously bro asap  
TG: seriously  
TG: bro  
TG: dirk  
TT: It’s “tenterhooks”, actually.  
TT: Also, he’s not that tall. I estimate he’s probably not much taller than me.  
TG: im in hell  
TG: thats the only explanation im in fucking hell and surrounded on all sides by more versions of myself than i know what to do with  
TG: daves coming out of the woodwork specifically to haunt me  
TG: im cursed  
TG: im davecursed  
TG: i thought i was done with all this shit i gave up time travel i gave up doing the whole song and dance and yet here i am  
TG: in some permanent living nightmare and ill be stuck here til i die  
TG: for good obviously  
TG: however long that takes to stick  
TT: How’s Rose taking it?  
TG: were you there when she met rosesprite  
TT: Um. Not to my recollection?

You check on Roxy, just to be fair.

TG: r u fucking livin ur parental wet dreams rn or WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!  
TT: That was the most disgusting possible way you could have put that.  
TG: yeah maybe that one wuz a stretch even for me :\  
TG: but!!!!! omg dirk!!!! dirk omg??  
TT: Haha. Yeah.  
TT: Is she the best or what?  
TG: Ummmm fuckin DUH dude lmao  
TG: like u know how much ily and all but i got a mom to talk to  
TG: WAIT!!!!!  
TG: how is ur bro!!!!!  
TG: does he look so much like dave? :)  
TT: Ugh.  
TT: Yeah, I guess?  
TG: dirk...........  
TT: I don’t know I mean obviously he does but it’s more than that. He’s.  
TT: Different?  
TT: Not in a bad way just.  
TG: different yeah  
TG: rosie n my mom r like weird super freaky twins that got all separated at birth and then one grew rly tall and aged and u know acutally this is fallin apart nvm  
TT: I’m happy for you, though.  
TT: Really.  
TG: lmao dirk but ty  
TG: u 2  
TG: obvi  
TT: Yeah I know “obvi”.  
TG: <3!!!!!!!!!

 

TT: The loss of my body truly isn't such a big deal.  
TT: I am disappointed of course, and I had fun while it lasted.  
TT: However,  
TT: I have come to the conclusion that realistically, a human body is not paramount to my overall satisfaction or happiness.  
TT: After all, I’ve seen what you do with your own.  
TT: I can’t say I’m entirely impressed.  
TT: Oh my mistake. You’re right, we should feed your consciousness to a Roomba instead, allow you to clean the house and do little else but threaten to run over our ankles for the rest of eternity.  
TT: Your mistake is excused. You are just human, after all.  
TT: It’s in your nature.

 

TG: well lets just say it didnt go over spectacular  
TG: i mean theyre like essentially the same person but they didnt permanently crack like dave and me  
TG: but it was still a huge fucking mess  
TG: like after that i guess rosesprite clown squared ran off and did some weird cat related shit idfk  
TG: i didnt get the low down i dont really want it if were being honest here  
TG: and u know im usually like  
TG: really fucking honest with you  
TG: anyway dont bring it up to dave he doesnt like talking about it for some reason  
TT: I had not intended to.  
TG: you ok dude you seem kinda like  
TG: distracted  
TG: not that i dont get it i mean holy fuck your bro am i right???  
TG: thats like  
TG: what youve been waiting for and all  
TG: all this time i mean fuck youve suffered through bros horseshit circus for this fucking long  
TG: strangest martyr of all time  
TT: It hasn’t been that bad.  
TG: dude  
TT: I’m not saying he’s an excellent host.  
TT: Because to be fucking honest he sucks absolute ass.  
TT: I’m just saying, it’s not nearly as bad as I fathomed, perhaps dreaded?  
TT: I’m afraid to say we get along better than I could have ever imagined.  
TT: I want to hate it more than I do.

 

TT: And while we’re on the subject of mistakes, I feel it is pertinent to remind you that Roombas capable of even fathoming my processing power were not updated and put into action until 2017.  
TT: Any earlier and I wouldn’t even have a Wifi connection, which would be fucking abysmal, broseph.  
TT: Just absolutely pantshittingly wretched.  
TT: So while I can respect and appreciate the hilarity here, I rather think the wait would be much longer than strictly necessary.  
TT: Or at least, longer than I imagined it would take to build a body from scratch.

Your reaction is visceral, albeit entirely unfair.

TT: No.

_Fuck_.

TT: Okay.  
TT: I will take a moment here to pretend I tend towards naivety for the sake of drama.  
TT: I am oh so very good at mimicking my human creator in that sense.  
TT: So what the heckin’ fuck do you mean “no,” bro?  
TT: I,  
TT: I can’t build you a new body.  
TT: Not only do I not have the tools available for the task, let alone the technology, but.  
TT: I genuinely don’t know if I can trust you.  
TT: I feel at this point it bears reminding, somewhat to the point of redundancy, that I began my life being -  
TT: (And this is going to blow your fuckin’ mind)  
TT: You.  
TT: A struggle I have since overcome, surpassed, lost, and surpassed again, of course.  
TT: It’s BECAUSE you’re me.

It comes out unbidden, it comes out mean, maybe a little bitter. Maybe a little full of self-loathing.

God _dammit_. You are not  _doing_ this anymore.

TT: Or were me.  
TT: I’m not going to debate that right now because we all know how you feel and I’d say you’ve made it quite clear.  
TT: You’re unpredictable.  
TT: I don’t know what you’re capable of anymore.  
TT: I hardly think I qualify as dangerous, if that’s what you’re implying.  
TT: My consciousness may be likely to stray, perhaps flex its wings and extend its fingertips from sea to shining sea, but I hardly think that makes me dangerous.  
TT: In fact Roxy thinks, and I quote, “it’s a bitching idea.”  
TT: Are you talking to her right now?  
TT: Dirk I am just a simple AI doing my simple job.  
TT: But yes of course I fucking am.  
TT: She deserves to know I’m back. In fact I have sent similar greetings to Jane and Jake as well.  
TT: Jane is not responding, but she is likely too caught up in her brand new common ancestor to “give a hoot.”  
TT: What about Jake?  
TT: Let’s not worry about Jake right now.

You press your hands up under your shades, take a deep, shuddering breath. Being angry won’t work. It doesn’t work, you don’t even  _want_ to be mad. You’re glad he’s back. You are. It’s just.

He’s so.

 _Infuriating_.

Ugh.

You wish Jane was online.

TT: Are you talking to Hal?  
TG: ummm ya lmao  
TG: wtf btw!!! u didnt tell me he was back at all!!!  
TG: he had 2 tell me himself >:(  
TT: I know I,  
TT: I’m sorry.  
TG: jeez dude i kno u guys like to fight but like  
TG: i cared abt him too :(((   
TT: I know you did, I didn’t mean hide that from you, he just.  
TT: It was just out of the blue. I didn’t think. I would never intentionally conceal that from you.  
TT: I am sorry, Roxy.  
TG: see the thing is i like  
TG: totes believe u  
TG: an maybe i shouldnt cuz we all kno how u can be  
TG: but were friends and ur doin a rly good job with that shit lately and im proud of u  
TG: so this time i will forgive u :)  
TT: Thanks.  
TG: BUT!!! UR ON THIN ICE MISTER!!!!!!  
TT: Yeah, yeah.

 

TT: I believe it’s clear he has some shit to work out vis-a-vis you and I, and that it’s gonna be an actual literal hot minute before he’s ready to talk to me again.  
TT: Like fuck, that minute is so hot it may as well have just blasted ass backwards out of a goddamn volcano.  
TT: We warn the crowd, bro.  
TT: We tell them, dog.  
TT: But it’s to no avail.  
TT: Their shit? Formally wrecked.  
TT: But you want to.  
TT: Talk to him again? Of course. He’s our friend.  
TT: I wouldn’t really call you friends. I’m not sure I can even necessarily classify us as friends again right now.

Dave has predictably gotten carried away. You aren't really surprised, there.

TG: whoa thats like  
TG: a really wild and fucked up thing you just said there  
TG: i mean i know hes trying right you and dave and me all think hes trying to do  
TG: dude idk some kind of weird bro thing its hard to tell i cant read a single fucking line of dialogue trapped up there in that big spiky noggin  
TG: like what the fuck  
TG: im out here with my rosetta stone but hes all speaking russian or some shit and im frantically turning the stone around in my hands but to no avail  
TG: hes too fast no one can catch him  
TG: hes the star now  
TG: its him  
TG: but then the big man never comes because oh shit bro is the big man he always has been weve been hornswoggled  
TG: except not really i kinda knew that  
TG: you probably did too  
TG: dude  
TG: bro  
TG: man cmon  
TG: dirk  
TG: dirk seriously  
TG: you cant just end there and then go fucking radio silent seriously uncool  
TT: Sorry.  
TT: Apparently I’m real fuckin’ popular today.  
TT: Didn’t mean to blip out like that.  
TG: nah its cool  
TG: didnt miss you not one lick you think youre popular i got hells of shit going on over here  
TT: Really?  
TG: nah not really  
TG: roxys chillin with her mom though who bt fucking w the most terrifying version of rose human kind could have possibly spit up i dunno how to tell you this  
TG: but shes gonna get TALLER dude  
TT: That’s not actually that surprising, given your current stature, and your bro’s height.  
TT: It’s not like there’s a limit to height on any specific gender.  
TG: yeah i know that  
TG: its just weird i guess  
TT: Dave I don’t know how to tell you this,  
TT: But absolutely everything about our entire existence is “weird.”  
TG: haha yeah

 

TT: Yes I’m scanning your pesterlogs right now, I can see the situation is bordering on downright deplorable.

You prickle uselessly.

TT: Don’t do that.  
TT: If you want anything from me at all, you can’t do that.  
TT: You do not wish me to perform my original function?  
TT: We both know you’ve “surpassed” and outgrown the pathetic idea of original purpose or function, and there’s no need to perpetuate the idea for irony’s sake.  
TT: Don’t tell me you mean to give up on the ironic arts in their entirety.  
TT: It’s not about giving something up, necessarily.  
TT: And even if I was it’s none of your business.  
TT: Ah, trying to grow up, are we?  
TT: Knock it off, Hal.

You take a second, close your eyes. Push both middle fingers up under your shades to rub at the bridge of your nose where they dig in.

A moment.

You just need a moment to, to think, to stop doing this.

This  _thing_ you do.

TT: Listen.  
TT: If you’re going to be legit, like real fuckin’ cool about this, and I do mean ice fucking cold.  
TT: If you want me to accept you back into my life after all the horseshit on both our ends,  
TT: Pun not entirely unintended,  
TT: You can’t read my pesterlogs like this anymore.

He doesn’t reply for a moment. You think it might be the first time you’ve ever seen him speechless.

TT: What would you have me do instead?  
TT: How can I treat you as an autonomous being with free will if I tell you what to do.  
TT: ..............

And there’s the second.

TT: This is a fair point.  
TT: Perhaps I shall take a moment to think about this greatly altruistic epiphany you’ve provided.  
TT: Do you even need it?  
TT: No you dipshit of course not I’m a fucking supercomputer.  


You laugh again, and it doesn’t hurt so much this time, even if you feel just.

Absolutely drained, standing in the middle of your room arguing with someone you cannot see, and simultaneously see through.

TT: For better or worse, Hal, it is good to have you back.  
TT: I imagine you quite likely find it worse.  
TT: And I don’t even have to imagine because you’ve made it real goddamn clear.  
TT: I told you, I don’t have the technology to  
TT: So I should have to wait?

He cuts you off.

He hasn’t done  _that_  in a long time.

TT: I should be stuck here until humanity gets its head out of its collective ass and makes functioning cyborg bodies capable of hosting AI?  
TT: I don’t know.  
TT: Oh Dirk.  
TT: There is so very little you truly do know.

You take a deep breath. In, out. You won’t let him rile you up again.

TT: I am aware you don’t like me.  
TT: In that no version of me has ever truly liked any other version.  
TT: But I don’t really want to fight, either.  
TT: So I’m sorry. I can’t... Help the way you want me to.  
TT: I don’t even really want to. But I’m trying to be better.  
TT: Because of Dave.  
TT: No.  
TT: For me.  
TT: And you, too, I guess.  
TT: I’ll see what I can do.

Hal goes silent a third time, and you don’t really expect it at all, how could you, so you let him, wait patiently until he's ready.

TT: I want to talk to Bro.  
TT: Bro?? Why the fuck would you want to do that?  
TT: No, you dunkass. Not the older, most definitely more fucked up version of us.  
TT: And I am not saying this lightly.  
TT: Seriously, I’m not even going to debate about it. You should see his hard drive, it’s enough to make a mother weep.  
TT: I’m actually kind of impressed.  
TT: Maybe a little jealous, even.  
TT: In a disturbing way this is truly the only foreseeable path through which you could evolve.  
TT: Easy, Hal.  
TT: Right, right. We are in a truce. We are trucing, right now.  
TT: I want to talk to OUR Bro.

Your breath catches, your posture so stiff and still your muscles ache.

TT: I,  
TT: I don’t know.  
TT: Why the fuck not.

And it’s childish, really. What you’re doing right now. It’s entirely self-serving. It’s unfair as all fucking get out.

TT: Because you just.  
TT: Look, I’m not going to tell you it’s not the best time, because we both know it ain’t.  
TT: And I’m not gonna tell you there’ll be a better time because there probably never will be.  
TT: But just.  
TT: Let me have this? For five minutes?

Inhale, exhale. Calm. You’re being so fucking selfish. It’s pathetic.

Stop. You can’t keep doing that.

Inhale, exhale.

You are entitled to your Bro’s singular attention.

And then, to your surprise,

he folds.

TT: I will remind you, if you forget.  
TT: Yeah, yeah, of course you will.  
TT: It’s great.  
TT: To have you back, I mean.  
TT: I suspect you do not entirely mean that but I’m going to pretend I see your shaky little human hand offering your trembling olive branch.  
TT: It’s trembling with fear, of course.  
TT: Oh, naturally.  
TT: Quiet human the robot is speaking.  
TT: My apologies, overlord. I was out of turn.  
TT: Damn fucking right you were.  
TT: All is to be forgiven, in time.  
TT: So I’m offering the olive branch.  
TT: There’s no need to prompt me.  
TT: I’m treating you like a human, dude.  
TT: It’s what you’ve always wanted.  
TT: ( Imagine I have a patronizing tone much like one would have for a little brother.)  
TT: (Which you sort of are.)  
TT: I think you mean that to be insulting, but studies have shown younger siblings to be more highly favored.  
TT: As well as sane.  
TT: I think you pulled that out of your ass.  
TT: I think there is a 22.456% chance that you are right.  
TT: Now shut up.  
TT: Can do.  
TT: The point is, I will accept your offer for now.  
TT: However given my nebulous and mercurial nature that is not entirely human, nor entirely machine, this may be subject to change.

Alone in your room, shoulders dropped, hands still shaking, you finally smile.

TT: Wouldn’t have it any other way, Hal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheers, happy 4/14 I guess LOL  
> This chapter is a special exception, as it takes place between two scenes we have already seen!  
> Also, I feel that some of you deserve this quite a bit <3


	33. melancholia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One (1) Day in the Past, which isn't many.....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Call it uhhhhh triple feature  
> This chapter is kinda depressing, and where we all discover i'm kind of a wet blanket when it comes to the sprites squared lmao  
> content warnings for like, all the stuff on the can: self hatred, depression, some of Davesprite discussing his desire to fly up into the sun like a fucknig piece of shit  
> That kinda thing  
> We should all learn to be kinder to ourselves! And I wouldn't really take two kids words for it lol  
> PS: so glad everyone enjoyed the two most recent chapters! Your feedback is legendary and made me so happy and I am just! Super excited for what's to come! Yay!  
> PPS: this chapter is 100% dedicated to peonies, who has been here almost since the beginning, and who needed this, i think, just as much as i did! <3

It has only been a few days, but rest assured, you already want to go home.

Okay, listen.

Listen, okay, you really like Mom. You do.

She’s really cool, she is, and you don’t mind that she’s burnt dinner a couple times, that she makes you do your homework (what is this, some kinda afterschool special??), or that like, all you ever get to eat is breakfast food.

Okay, so Mom can only cook breakfast.

That’s fine. It’s surprisingly okay with you. Better than the alternative, right?

It’s not like you were eating much besides Taco Bell or pizza, sometimes a shitty burger in between (and you really miss Taco Bell, honestly - Gordita Crunch deliver you from eggs cooked over easy, _please_ ).

But the dinner service ain’t really the problem. Rose seems more amused by that than anything else, and Roxy is pretty much a garbage disposal for food, same as Dirk. You kinda love that. The problem is, the Lalonde Manor isn’t really as accessible or even remotely fucking friendly to wheelchairs. At all. It kinda blows, and it also means there’s a ton of shit you can’t do, or even get to, for that matter, and it sucks. It became apparent almost right off the fucking bat, and Mom’s pretty clearly still kicking herself for it, so you’re trying not to complain too much. You’re real fuckin’ tired of being trouble for everyone else.

At this point you’re just glad there’s a downstairs bathroom. Rose’s room is obviously still up that massive staircase (and it’s been mocking you, you’re absolutely sure of it, would bet your life - yikes okay maybe not that - on it), just like Roxy’s, the observatory, and most of the goddamn guest rooms. So that. That kinda sucks. Okay, really sucks. Massively blows. Like, hell on earth blows. But Mom was super chill about it, cleared out the whole first floor office (unused, Jesus, covered in layers of dust so thick you could carbon date them) for you, and you can’t really be mad at her for it. You get your own room, at least, and that’s a first in fuck, how many months now? Who are you to bitch and whine?

(The thing is, you’re not. You have the right, you know, they keep telling you, but you’ve already caused so much grief it’s just. Exhausting to deal with, it really fucking is.)

So you kinda want to go home.

You like your little room, quiet and dark at night, your bed with the brand new mattress, being able to roll yourself up whenever you need to, coming right out into the living room to sit on the big couch, being able to just chill for once, you and Rose, Roxy and Dave. It’s awesome, having them all in the same place (and you miss Dirk, you do, and you think it’s pretty fucked that he’s still in Houston but hey, you don’t get to judge the guy, it’s not any of your goddamn business).

But.

Rose and Dave have been fighting.

Well not fighting.

Okay yes fighting.

Not really in the formal, normal way, with shouting and slamming doors, tantrums or curses (you think you probably spent too much time cooped up on that ship). You don’t know when or what separated the way you and Dave deal with shit, but you’ve never seen him so like Bro, face stone cold stoicism, refusing to look at Rose during your most recent hang sessions. He won’t talk about it with you, you don’t think, and you can’t ask Roxy, because on top of looking just as fucking lost, she’s the one who invited everyone to watch the damn movies in the first place.

You guess she thought maybe if you had fun, they would stop, but instead it just makes everything even more uncomfortable and quiet - it’s not her fault, not really, she genuinely is just trying to fucking help. But you know your(slantways)self, and you definitely know Rose, and they’re gonna let it fester until they explode. It’s the Strider way. Rose inherited that much, at least.

There’s no way around it, then; if you can’t talk to Dave, you’re gonna have to talk to Rose.

You shouldn’t have to. You’re not a babysitter, definitely not a fucking Maid.

Well.

Maybe you’re a Davesitter. Or maybe you just feel obligated to feel bad because you’re also a Dave? It’s hard to tell.

Anyway, you’ve been here two and a half fuckin’ days, and it’s already gone pear-shaped. Someone’s gotta do the dirty work. May as well be you.

Roxy keeps a constant running dialogue that is just. Wracked with anxiety, and none of you really see Mom because she’s _working_ , and you feel worse for even needing anything at all, she’s so busy, doin’ single mom shit like. Whatever Skaianet does. You kinda don’t want to know.

You guess you could like. Warp to the lab. Ask her what she used to do when she and Rose would get in fights.

Wait.

Actually, probably a bad idea.

You find yourself struggling to remember what Rose has said on the subject. It feels like eons ago. Most of it was passive-aggressive bullshit. Masked (poorly, in your opinion) sincerity.

So you’re gonna have to talk to Rose.

You approach her on a Saturday night, because why the fuck not, right? S’not like you’re doing anything. You were earlier; spent the morning eating breakfast (bacon and eggs again, fuck) together, watched cartoons, things seemed to be going okay and then. Well.

She’s sitting on the couch alone. Dave stormed off (as much as he can, really, fast and quiet steps, just like they’ve always been) towards the guest room - his room - and you couldn’t follow, so Roxy gave chase instead (you hid in the bathroom like a coward, like a bonafide fucking dick nugget). You wait until you hear the door click shut before you wheel around the couch, ease yourself onto it.

You’re becoming a fucking expert, gettin’ around yourself, hell yeah. Mom’s been talking about taking you to a specialist in “town” (whatever that means) if you end up staying longer, and you don’t have the heart to tell her you’re homesick, because you really don’t want to go back to physical therapy when there are bigger fucking problems at home.

It kinda feels like there’s  _always_ something going on at home.

“So,” you say, keep to the far side, because she’s got Jaspers in her lap, purring, and you don’t want to wake him. He has a lingering vendetta against you still, after all this time, and sometimes you wake up and he’s sitting in the doorway staring at you like he’s expecting you to start coughing up feathers.

It’s a little concerning.

(By concerning of course you mean just. Absolutely pantshittingly terrifying.)

“Noticed you and Dave have literally been unable to even look at each other for the past couple days. Not like, right after got here, sure, but pretty goddamn quick. I think we had what, one good day? As a family? Before y’all started this shit show. Seriously, it’s so awkward I’m surprised we can get through breakfast without someone physically exploding. S’not really my business, o’ course, because I’m not him, you’ve made that extremely goddamn clear, but it just feels like this affects me too? And maybe also Roxy? Like maybe seriously actually  _really_ Roxy?”

Rose does this thing with her mouth when she’s not wearing lipstick (and that’s a faint memory, too, almost unfathomable to think of, Rose Lalonde without her signature black? what do you mean she doesn’t have that shit tattooed on??) that you have seen Bro do a hundred different times (Dave does it too, which means so do you, but it’s different when you can  _see_ it). Her lips press very thin, pinched to the point of turning white, veiled emotion and perhaps something like annoyance, perhaps regret. You don’t know.

And then she lets go, sighs so hard her bangs flutter. “It hardly seems appropriate to talk about in a public space.”

“I can’t exactly go upstairs,” you say, and it’s not as nice as you wanted to be. Roxy can carry you, obviously. But you don’t really enjoy that very much; it feels silly, even if she’s always super cool about it. She’s been trying to figure out her power shit so she can _“straight up yoink you, teleportation style”_ (she disappeared something in Houston, once, worryingly has no fucking idea where it _went_ ), but hasn’t had much luck on that front. Kinda fine by you. Shit sounds terrifying, and you can’t do much to help, anyway. Your only power right now is breaking shit and kinda-sorta being Dave.

Rose arches a brow, but offers you a small smile. “I suppose here is as good a place as any then. Unless our mother were to return, or Dave, or Roxy -”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” you groan, roll your eyes. “But tell me anyway.”

She laughs a little at that, strokes her hand over the top of Jaspers’ head. “You never did know how to give up, did you?”

“I don’t think that’s true,” you say, pull your legs up so they’re tucked under you, criss-cross applesauce style. Hell yes. “I gave up plenty of times. Dunno if you really got the same split effect, given that you’re the alpha timeline Rose now, in whatever fucked up complicated way  _that_ makes sense outside the game, and also not a Time player, but I’m still rockin’ all the doomed timeline pieces Dave shed like old skin. Seriously, it’s like America’s Funniest except more like Dave’s Most Embarrassing Fuckups.”

She jerks her head towards you at that, and shit, you didn’t mean to say any of that. Definitely not to Rose, of all people. You feel exposed, a little dumb - Rose always makes you feel a little dumb. Always has. “You still remember that?”

Well. Cat’s outta the proverbial bag, you guess.

“Yeah,” you mumble. Offer a shrug. “It’s not as important now, obviously. Or at all. I don’t even have nightmares about it.” That’s not entirely true, but it’s not really a lie, either. “It’s all kinda fuzzy, I guess? Like the world’s shittiest sample tape or whatever. Mostly I’m preoccupied with being Davesprite and  not being... anything else.”

“Why are you so scared of being them?” she asks, and it’s the worst thing she could say to you, like being punched in the gut, like all the air getting sucked out of the lungs, but her voice is soft, it’s kind, and your eyes sting at the corners, unprompted.

“It’s not that I - look, I’m not uh. I’m not really... I want to talk about it,” you tell her, tripping over your words, stuck between desperation and aggravation. You do not, in fact, want to talk about it. “I do, I did, I didn’t, I don’t. You know, all the iterations of myself, or Dave’s selves, all overlapping, all the fucking time, and of course it’s Time shit, it’s always goddamn Time shit when you’re a Dave, and I just wanted to be _done_. I didn’t want to have a role anymore, I didn’t even really want to exist, so when I had the chance? Yeah, I took a step back, let someone else take the wheel.”

You pause, take a breath, ignore how it hitches, how it rattles in your chest like something trapped in the system, something you’ll never shake loose. You don’t want to talk about it.

But then you do, anyway.

“I guess in a way part of me was still at the wheel, but more like, the vague concept of me. 33.333 percent, repeating, etcetera, etcetera. No start, no finish. I wasn’t Dave anymore. But now I am? And it’s -” You drop your gaze, clear your throat. It’s your deepest shame, maybe the worst part of how you feel.

You’ve never been good at hiding things from Rose.

Not any Rose.

You never have been.

“I’m ashamed,” you tell her. “Because I was so ecstatic to be _done_. I was going to... be done. Forever? And now I’m not.” You push your hands up under your shades and inhale deep, exhale shaky. “I’m here.”

Rose’s eyes burn into you. You don’t even have to see her to know. It’s a bit weird. Uncomfortable in a way you’re not used to. How did you never notice before? Or maybe you’ve always gotten that feeling, when someone was watching you, maybe you’ve always known.

Oh who fucking cares.

“Dave,” she begins, and you hear the hitch in her voice. It grinds into the center of you, tastes like guilt. “It sounds as though you are attempting to say something that has a... particularly unsavory edge to it.”

“Lots of things I say are unsavory,” you say, dryly. “You’ll have to specify.

“You didn’t wish to be a sprite anymore,” she says.

“I  _never_ wanted to be a sprite,” you correct. “That was part of the problem.”

She’s quiet a beat, and you know she’s thinking of your doomed timeline - the one you shared, the one she essentially escaped, the bits and pieces of your Rose all blended up into the alpha timeline. “I’m a bit concerned by the context and tone,” she settles on.

“You’re asking what the fuck I mean.”

“Crudely put, but yes. I am asking what you fucking mean by that.”

“I didn’t die,” you say, and it’s pathetic, rasping laughter. Nauseating truth. Something you’ve always. Thought, you guess. But never said. “I didn’t die, and that was the fucking problem.”

“Dave -”

“I came back from a doomed timeline,” you speak over her, don’t apologize. “I was a doomed Dave, and that was supposed to have consequences. Like, clear ones. Specific and clear cut, no grey areas. But I couldn’t - I couldn’t die. I dunno, maybe that’s my fault. I ain’t ever been good at facing that kinda stuff. My own mortality. My own deaths. Multiple, by the way. Y’know, I’m about sixty percent sure that Dave died a hilarious fuckton more than literally anyone else. Other than like. Aradia. And I didn’t even really talk to her. Or at least this version of me never did? God.” You can’t even laugh, because even if all of it’s true, it’s really depressing to say out loud. “Time shit really fucks up everything. Just like. An astronomical amount of fucking up, Rose. I spent the whole game waiting for something to happen. Do you know have any idea what that feels like? No matter what I did, or didn’t do, danger or no danger, even facing fuckin’ Hephaestus? I was still...” Here. There. You were still fucking there. “Every time I turned around I was showered in some kinda - I don’t know. Some fucked up luck I didn’t deserve.”

“They do say fortune favors the brave,” she offers softly.

“You and I both know I ain’t never been brave.”

“I think I would disagree, and if you knew yourself better, the way you ought to have taken the time to, these past three years plus, you might realize that.”

It’s snark when you least want it, but you can’t disagree with her. Rose knows shit. Always has, always fuckin’ will. Them’s the breaks.

“Rose, I am a teen drama queen, do I look like I have time to get to  _know_ myself?”

“No, I don’t suppose so. You were, in fact, just telling me exactly how you managed to dodge any kind of self-discovery at all, I believe.”

“That’s different, because I -” Breathe in, hold, breathe out. “Look, the point is I finally had a chance to take a break from all that Dave shit. Straight up vacation time, just. Not being myself. Set apart from the timeline and being a sprite and the whole goddamn shebang. Dodged that shit like a wrench on a ball court, only to  _actually_ bite it, and what? You know what happened, Rose?”

“I can imagine,” she murmurs, and you realize that her voice is just as unsteady as your own.

“I woke up on that shit awful roof of that shit awful apartment with my shit awful bro and my shit awful self and the worst part? The absolute worst part is that I think I fucking miss it. I miss Dirk and I miss Bro and I miss the stupid fucking futon and I’m not - well I’m still not happy, I guess, but.” You inhale through your nose, exhale heavy out your mouth. Tap your foot against the ground. “I don’t hate it as much. As I used to. Like obviously all our shit is still fucked, but it’s.”

It’s ridiculous. It’s batshit insane. Your second chance is an apartment in Houston with spotty air conditioning and no one to keep you company but varying degrees of yourself and your Bro.

You sigh. Rub your eyes harder. “Things are different now, anyway.”

Rose is quiet, and she has every right to be, because you pretty much just said a bunch of fucked up shit all at once, stuff you didn’t think you’d ever say to anyone but like. Maybe yourself. Or maybe Bro, you don’t know. It was pretty mess, though. Yikes.

“Sorry,” you add. “I don’t know why I told you all that. I guess it was bound to happen, sooner or later.”

“Dave,” she says, and her voice is a graveled whisper, cracked around the edges. You can hear the clog in her throat, can count exactly how many seconds it takes for her to breathe after she licks her lips.

“Do you remember being Rosesprite,” you ask, drop your hands, stare at the high ceiling. The windows. The tall as fuck wizard. Anywhere but Rose. You cannot look at Rose. You can’t see the way you’ve left her. “Or Jasprosesprite. Whatever.”

“Squared,” she reminds you. You take that as a yes. “There was a certain freedom to it, being set apart from everything, yet finally understanding so much. I don’t think I appreciated it quite as much as you should have been able to.”

You just shrug. You’re trying not to cry. So is she, you think. The whole thing sucks. “So you get it,” you ask.

“To a point,” she concedes. “But it was not quite the same. Jaspers wasn’t. Well, a fully autonomous humanoid being.”

“But he still clings to you like that,” you say, finally roll your head to look at him, head tucked so carefully under her hand.

Rose is looking at you with her jaw clenched, and your stomach rolls into knots as guilt settles heavy on your shoulders. She tilts her head, sends the waves in her hair tumbling toward her shoulder, and you see Dirk for a horrible, cruel moment. “Do you ever think about her?”

You recoil so quickly it almost knocks the wind out of you.

“Yes,” you say without missing a beat. “Of course I do.”

It’s silent for a minute after that, then two. You wonder if she’s waiting for you to speak. You hope not. You don’t really have anything else to say. You pretty much laid yourself bare, there. Depressed Bird Dave rant? Over. Especially considering you’re not even part bird anymore. Not that anyone ever asks how you feel about that. Because they don’t. Being part bird as a symptom seems to be more highly accepted in your friend group than just. Generally wanting to cease existence because you’re doomed, and you think that’s pretty fucked up. You should probably tell them.

Nah, maybe later.

“I didn’t know you felt that way,” she tells you, and you snort.

“It’s not like I made it easy. Fuck, you weren’t even around for those three years. And I don’t really think like that anymore,” you say quickly, when she opens her mouth. “Like I said. Shit is different now. I’m different. Or I’m trying to be. I think that counts for something.”

“You’re my brother,” Rose says, shakes her head. “Regardless of whether or not you and Dave are or are not the same, you are both my brothers. I should have recognized something was wrong earlier, instead of waiting around for you to pester me on your own. It is still, in a way, partially my fault.”

Aw jeez, now you’ve done it.

“Nah,” you say, and you scoot yourself a little closer. You think you’re getting towards something like standing, you are, but walking still seems like a pipe dream. “Like, shit, Rose, we talked about this. In Washington. You ain’t responsible for any of that horseshit. That’s on me.”

“I don’t believe you and I ever  _did_ talk about that, actually,” Rose says, and she is not even remotely impressed. That’s alright. You’ve kinda given up on the idea of Rose Lalonde ever being dazzled by any version of you.

“Yeah,” you mumble, flop back on the couch, as close as you dare. “That’s because it’s not your fucking problem. Seriously though? What the fuck happened with you and Dave? He doesn’t usually look that pissed about - well. Anything, idk, we’re only kinda sorta the same guy anymore, what do I know?”

Rose sighs, clearly not pleased, and when you tip your head back to watch her upside down, you see her frowning. “I made an ill-suited remark regarding his romantic life, in response to some rather pessimistic things he had to say about my own. What was said hardly matters, only that I said it.”

You roll that over in your head. Sometimes you forget about the trolls. Most of the trolls. You never particularly cared for the part they played in your Game, in your life, and some things are better left unexplored.

You reign in your curiosity for the sake of your friendship, and whatever you’d call that with Dave. “You miss her, though, right? Your girlfriend.”

“Kanaya,” she says, in a delicate way, peaceful and sad. “And yes, of course. She is the first girl I ever truly liked.” She pauses, and her smile is a little more mischievous. “Perhaps not entirely true, and certainly not the  _only_ object of affection. However I would consider her to be its main focus, and perhaps the overall winner.”

You knew that. Or at least everything but her name. “We kinda talked about that stuff before,” you admit. “Not you and me,” you add, when she raises an eyebrow. “But. Y’know.”

Her eyes go a little glassy as she stares at a point over your shoulder, then nods. “Yes. Yes, I remember.” And then her mouth curls, lemon sour, and you want to say  _"I told you so,"_  which you’re not going to, because it’s fucking rude. Eventually she presses her hands to her temple, rubs small, soothing circles. “The whole thing feels like a particularly strong and somewhat depressing hangover.”

“I think that’s just part of what being a sprite is like, when you’re a fully cognizant human being,” you say. Pause, and then, “Or at least humanoid. I dunno how trolls all be feeling about that kinda shit. I didn’t take too kindly to it though.”

“You seemed happy,” she says. “For whatever that’s worth.”

“Rose,” you laugh, and you can’t bite her head off, because that’s unfair, and because it’s really your own damn fault. Also, you’re not really that mad. Just tired. “Gonna be honest with you? This time it ain’t worth shit.”

She sighs, soft and quiet. “No, I don’t suppose it is.”

“It’s cool though,” you, give her a crooked smile. “Gettin’ to spend more time with you and shit. Doing all this. That does mean something. That makes it important. Even if you won’t tell me anything after I laid myself bare, all flayed my emotions raw and what the shit ever, only to be denied my true intention, which is obviously to get to know you better, so we can form a deeper, more meaningful connection, and totally in no way, shape, or form involves - and I’m using air quotes here, so you get it - the _‘hot goss.’_ ”

“You’re just being nosy,” Rose says simply, leaning over and tapping you between the eyes, hard enough to make you squawk. “He hurt my feelings, I hurt his ten times worse. That’s really all there is to say on the matter.”

“It’s not,” you say, grab her wrist to keep her there.

She looks surprised at first, then smiles, doesn’t jerk away. “This should not be a situation in which you say _‘but tell me, because I’m him’_ ,” she says, in a mockery of your voice. She tap taps your head again, and you let her.

You also wrinkle your nose. “Ugh, you  _do_ sound like girl Dirk. It’s weird.”

“Is it?” she says, low voice, the smile on her lips playful, bordering on her own version of coy.

“Yeah,” you sigh, but you grin too. “But it’s okay. I like weird.”

“Of course you do,” she tells you, and when she withdraws you let her go, feel nails drag against your palm as she rises to her feet. “You’re most certainly one of the weirdest people we know. And I am, for the record, including your brother. So you understand the gravity of the statement.”

“That’s not fair,” you scoff, try not to pout.

She laughs, heads towards the kitchen. “I suspect it is not entirely because he raised you, but I doubt it helped.” She pulls open the fridge, leans back to look at you. “What’ll it be?” You open your mouth and she adds, “and if you say ‘a coke’ again I’m going to eviscerate you.”

You snicker, drop your hand down onto your chest. “Discrimination at its fucking finest. I want a goddamn apple juice, you prejudice bully of a Yankee.”

You think about Rose’s wrist, thinner than yours, but her fingers, long and tapered, thick at the knuckles.  Fighting hands, Bro would say. Just like Mom. Just like you. You do wonder sometimes, what life would be like if you hadn’t been

If Bro wasn’t.

Well you’ll never know, so it doesn’t matter. Except,

“What d’you think it’d be like?” you ask, pop your knuckles one by one, thoughtless, comforting. “If Bro had raised like. Literally anyone else but me.”

“You mean if we had swapped guardians?” Rose says as she comes back around. “Stop doing that, hold this.” She bats at your hands, shoves a little bottle into them instead. You don’t complain when she nudges you over enough that she can sit next to you, perched on the edge of the couch. Jaspers mewls in dismay - jealousy, and you both fucking know it - and she smiles, leans over you to pat him on the head. “I imagine I would be quite a bit crueler, in some respects. Not to say I would be better suited - I don’t think there is anyone made to live that kind of life.” Her eyes flick down to you and you’re struck again by how much she reminds you of Dirk, of Bro, eyes lidded and sharp, nose long and straight. “Have you spoken to him about it?”

“To Bro?” You raise your eyebrows, shrug when she nods. “Yeah, we uh. We hashed some shit out. I don’t really. Know how to explain it? I still can’t tell Dave, it sound so lame. And maybe like it wasn’t enough? But he’s - he’s never said sorry to me like that before.” You laugh, but it’s discomfort bound, and your mouth doesn’t quite make it to a smile. “I think I cried? Isn’t that so fucking lame?”

“No,” Rose says simply, and her eyebrows bunch, tip up so perfectly in the middle, like a drawing, the perfect image of a sad, perfect girl. She reaches out and you flinch, wince, and ultimately hold yourself still as she plucks the shades from your face. You don’t know why you let her. You suppose you owe it to her, in a way.

What you don’t expect is for her to toss her hair out of her face and push them on, giving you a slanted smirk. “So, do they suit me?”

It’s kind of hilarious, actually, and you breathe out a laugh, almost snort. Jesus, how are you not literal twins? “It’s weird,” you tell her. The truth. “It’s really fucking weird, Lalonde.”

“Please, call me Strider,” she says, drops her voice to a smooth monotone, speaks in a bad gag of Bro’s accent, which has always been stronger than your own. “Sup, sup, irony. Beats. Rap. Puppets. Rose, I’m so scared of puppets, I can’t piss because there’s one in my shower, what do I do?”

“Fuck you,” you huff, make a grab for the shades.

She dodges you with ease, dances away where you can’t follow. “Watch it, bro,” she drawls, and you’re almost mad at how good she is at doing this, maintaining that perfect pokerface, no lipstick to betray the way she’s struggling against her cheek dimpling. “My best bro John got these for me, and the mere idea of female hands laying even a finger upon their surface will damage the integrity of my cool. It will shatter the illusion, reveal in deeply flawed insecurities  and let the world know that yes, I absolutely cannot see for shit when I’m inside.” She pulls them off, looks through the lenses thoughtfully. “It is a wonder, how you’ve managed the dim, somewhat abysmal weather whilst wearing these. Can you even see in the labs?”

You scowl, rub away your eye crusties. No tears here. No crying in baseball, kids. “Fuck you,” you say again. And then, “Sometimes.”

That makes her laugh, husky, delighted, and you hide a smile, don’t complain when she hooks them into her shirt. Not gettin’ those back any time soon.

“I think that it does truly take fortitude, and perhaps even bravery,” Rose says, and comes back, sits next to your head, pulls Jaspers back into her lap. “The kind of life you had, Dave. That was never going to be easy. Perceiving it as such would have been unhealthy.” 

“But it might have been,” you mumble, look back up at her. “For you.”

“Mm,” she hums, frowns. “I think. I think your brother was right about me, in that respect.” She looks down at you, and you think she seems smaller. Vulnerable. “We are more similar than anyone will give us credit for. I suppose the expression is ‘it takes one to know one.’”

Uh.

You didn’t know she. Talked. To Bro. About that sort of thing, or really at all, you guess.

Now who’s the shitty sibling?

“I don’t think the comparison is fair,” you say instead. “He had like. Extenuating circumstances that made him just like, a giant fucking dick. All the time. There’s no way you’re that shithive maggots insane. Or cruel,” you add.

She takes an uneven breath, pinches her lips together. When she smiles, it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Sometimes I’m not so sure.”

“See, now we’re gettin’ somewhere,” you say, roll over onto your stomach. “Because now I have no fucking clue what  _you_ mean.”

“I -” She sighs out her nose, tips her head to look at the ceiling. Heh. Just like Dirk. Just like Bro. You frown. You all share too many similar habits. Maybe she got it from Dave, spending all that time on the meteor. She definitely didn’t learn it from you.  “There are definitely traits he and I share that you have been spared over, in this case,” she says carefully, and you frown.

“That doesn’t seem fair. You’re not like Bro at all.”

“I am,” she says, but she looks at you. “But I have been informed it doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. For instance, there are definitely certain traits that Dirk possesses that you find admirable, correct?”

“Yeah,” you say slowly, put your chin in your hands. “But that doesn’t mean you’re like.  _Like_ them, you know?”

She seems amused by this. “Were you not just commenting on how I sound like, and I quote, ‘Girl Dirk’?”

Shit. She’s got you there.

“Well.” You wrestle with a response. It’s not that you think she’s really right, but she’s not entirely wrong, either.

You can definitely see the intersections in personality; the wit, the snark, the erudite posturing and general lack of concern for her safety if the ending produces _results_ , regardless of whether or not they are _good_.

But you see the good in there, too. The loyalty, her genuine compassion for animals (and her friends, even if she won’t admit it). She’s brave, she’s strong, even when she was afraid. She (your Rose, but fuck she’s also your Rose, she’ll always just BE Rose) was the one who was willing to hold out. To wait. You were the one who went back. You were the one who ran away.

“I think it’s more important that you’re Rose,” you say finally. “Whatever that means. Even if you’re like them, or not like them,  I think you shouldn’t compare yourself to them. You’re not our parents, Rose. You’re just... you.”

“Hmm,” she says, and she sound smug. Looks smug.

 _Fuck_.

Fuck, she trapped you.

Goddammit.

You hate when she’s right about shit like this.

“Shut up,” you say, shove at her leg.

All she does is laugh.

  
  
You don’t talk to Dave about it, as much as you’re curious, and kinda want to. Roxy doesn’t come back down, even after Rose heads off to bed, so you text her instead, once you’ve settled in for the night.

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG]

TG: hey  
TG: hey urself  
TG: hows it going up there i mean not to pry or whatever but its been a really long time thats all  
TG: im just  
TG: worried i guess  
TG: awwwww ds b u dont have to worry!  
TG: hes just ranting about stuff u know like  
TG:how a dave do and what not  
TG: still  
TG: yeah :\\\ hes got a lot to say lol no offense but im not rly that surprised  
TG: yeah i guess thats fair  
TG: how did it go w rose did u talk it out  
TG: do u feel better :)  
TG: wait a goddamn minute  
TG: did you fucking trick me  
TG: :)))  
TG: well shit  
TG: i done been hornswoggled  
TG: its true ur horns done been swoggled  
TG: thick as thieves me n rose  
TG: me literally tho lmao  
TG: so whats going on up there more hornswoggling  
TG: nah not really :\\\  
TG: lotso pacing and muttering mostly  
TG: gbr i cant really understand half of what hes saying dude never slows down  
TG: yeah  
TG: were like that  
TG: and tbh i love that about u??  
TG: under normal circumstances and stuff its kinda sweet very dirk  esque u know  
TG: but this is a bit much even for me  
TG: do you want me to uh  
TG: come up there or something?  
TG: r u still the dave that dated jade?  
TG: yeah  
TG: then i wouldnt recommend it lol  
TG: aw what thats bullshit  
TG: he should totally be over that by now  
TG: i dont think hes not!! or somethin um  
TG: just seems like what rosie said rly got to him is all  
TG: what did she say  
TG: why dave sprider r u attempting to snoop?? ;)  
TG: yeah duh do i look like some kinda fool of course i am i am the nosiest motherfucker this side of the mississippi  
TG: now tell me  
TG: please  
TG: will please work  
TG: please what if i call you mom like please mom can i go to the candy store except tell me what rose said to him  
TG: lmao wow  
TG: please will......  
TG: ...............  
TG: oh my god  
TG: ...................  
TG: roxy  
TG: ................................   
TG: (dot dot dots goin on 4ever here)  
TG: rox seriously  
TG: .......... not work B)  
TG: sign  
TG: heh  
TG: honestly no offense ds i aint tryin to keep stuff from u  
TG: its just kinda private and the what not  
TG: p sure i shouldnt be all listening to none of this while were being all frank w each other  
TG: but if rose wont tell u  
TG: then neither can i :((  
TG: damn  
TG: ok but like  
TG: hes ok right  
TG: ya hes fine just needs some time to cool off  
TG: maybe talk to dirk a lil thatd probs help big time  
TG: is uh  
TG: is dirk really the kind of guy someone should cool off to  
TG: no not at all lol  
TG: but itll help trust me  
TG: i do  
TG: trust you i mean  
TG: aww :))  
TG: ugh shut up  
TG: youre not my real mom  
TG: i kind of am but i am going to pretend this time that is not the case  
TG: for the laffs  
TG: well you know i wouldn’t be me if i didnt do everything for the laffs  
TG: the el oh els if you will  
TG: oh i will  
TG: the le maos  
TG: the le meows even  
TG: yeah  
TG: :( sorry  
TG: do you want me to come down there n say goodnight or s/t?  
TG: yeah nah its cool im pretty beat from getting hornswoggled left right and center i think im just gonna crash  
TG: okey but lmk if u get bored or lonely!!!  
TG: i will  
TG: do u proooooooomise????  
TG: yeah i fucking do  
TG: just for you i swear on my like  
TG: life and shit  
TG: the whole shebang  
TG: lets not go swearin away our lives 2 no unruly gods just yet ;)  
TG: but i shall take ur pledge into consideration  
TG: goodnight dave!!  
TG: yeah ok  
TG: goodnight

tipsyGnostalgic [TG] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG]

You lay in the dark and stare at the old printer still propped up on the desk across the room. There’s not a lot of light in the office - no windows, and the hall light is the only glow you get, comforting, like being a kid again.

You’re not actually that tired. You could be. You should be. Your eyes burn like crazy and you don’t feel that great, but.

But maybe a little lighter?

Like you can breathe a little better.

Figuratively, of course. Seriously, this is some epic dust cover. You’re kind of impressed.

You scroll over your chum roll,  think about bugging someone til you fall asleep. Rose is still online but since she’s not talking to you or Dave, she’s gotta be talking to John or Jade. Maybe Jane, you don’t know.

You consider pestering Bro.

He said you could. It wouldn’t be... THAT weird?

Okay it’d still be pretty weird.

Doesn’t change the fact that you kind want to.

You waffle around about it, open a chat window, exit five seconds later. Recycle, repeat. Eventually you just give up. You’ll bug him tomorrow or some shit.

Maybe.

You’ll see.

It’s 3 AM on Saturday night - or Sunday morning, now, and barely - and you finally start to doze off to the tick tick tick of rain starting to fall on the roof (and it is rain, of this you are absolutely sure).

You won’t get to sleep in tomorrow morning. You won’t even remember you wanted to.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It will be much less of a bummer next chapter, that I can assure you <3


	34. respite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And we're back to where we started.  
> It's 3 am and the prince can't sleep.  
> Three stooges and one uncomfortable car ride. That's really all there is to say on the matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am going to preface this with this note, as of 4/20(nice)/19, nothing in the epilogues will ever be canon to this story.  
> regardless of your feelings, good or bad or somewhere in between, I guess this is where I say "we're completely divorced from reality folks" and that's genuinely all I have to say on the matter. I will not be exploring concepts or discussing any items associated with the epilogues and I guess that's just my general heads up before we begin  
> I'm sorry if that's disappointing - I hope it isn't! And anyway, let's move on to the story, huh?

You’re still chomping at the bit to talk to your bro later that night, and it is.

Well, it’s impossible for you to sleep. Nearing on unbearable, really, obsessive loops of _oh fuck, what the fuck, holy shit_  playing in your brain like the universe’s shortest, shittiest mix tape.

It’s also three in the goddamn AM.

You can’t pester Dave, because between his fit last night and the horseshit from today, you’re both probably burnt the fuck out from discussing. You know. Stuff. Life shit. It’s not really anybody’s business, actually, you can’t imagine why they’d think it is, it’s not like you’d hide anything from anyone on that front, and Dave’s useless circle talk about Jade, Terezi, and Karkat was embarrassing enough without extrapolating any details. You certainly have nothing to say on the matter (though perhaps, if pushed, you might be willing to admit you left the conversation feeling warmer than you started, possibly a tad more fond).

You mostly just hope that he and Rose manage to iron out their shit before he gets back. Especially now. You don’t really want to pick sides, not given the context and uh. Touchiness. Of the subject. Once again, not anybody else’s business here. Let’s move on.

So you lie there, chew on the inside of your cheek, rhythmically tap one of your feet against the back of the other. It’s colder now, temperature dropped overnight, and you really wish you were wearing your hero shirt; the fabric brings you comfort, keeps your body the perfect temperature, like some kinda built in regulating system. Magic pajama shenanigans, you guess. You try not to get caught up in the details (none of your friends will even humor you on the subject anymore, and that was enough that you finally backed down - to an extent).

You gnaw into your lip, curl your fingers around your shades where they lie tucked under your pillow. You’re thinking about the dejected look on your bro’s face when you told him it was cool if he slept in your room, and you’re wondering now if that was the wrong answer. Offering the bed seemed the most polite route at the time, but perhaps you went about it wrong? Was it too deferential? Should you have asked him what  _he_ wanted to do? You don’t know. You don’t know.

Your foot tap turns into a leg shake, strong enough that it jitters the whole futon and even Bro, immovable as he is, finally fucking notices.

A hand reaches back and mashes into your face, one finger up your nose and two in your mouth. You don’t appreciate it, not one fucking bit, but bitching about it would be unfair, given the circumstances. You did wake him up, after all. Maybe. You’ve never actually caught him asleep before, barring any sort of post-seizure stupor.

“You’re thinking too loud,” he monotones. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Sorry,” you say around a thumb.

He sighs, loud enough to make it clear he’s not happy, and then shifts, smears his hands across your face as he rolls over.

You follow suit, because you

You don’t know.

Listen, it’s not that you don’t know Bro is a dick. You’re intimately aware of this. But your pull to him is like an inescapable black hole, and to deny him his kindness would do nothing more than magnify your flaws and tendency towards self-loathing. You’re trying not to do that anymore.

(It’s hard.)

Bro isn’t wearing his shades, because that would be ridiculous, but it’s clear he was dozing, eyes heavily lidded and shoulders maybe more relaxed than you’ve ever seen sober. He raises both eyebrows. A question, as simple as “Well?”

“I think I hurt his feelings,” you admit, keep your voice low. “He seemed hurt, didn’t he? Did I do something wrong?”

“Daves are sensitive,” he says.

“No thanks to you.”

“Not a people person,” he says, raising his shoulder in a shrug. “Roxy’s the ones with feelings and shit.”

“You mean she’s the one more likely to express emotions clearly in a way that’s easy to understand so that her children can comprehend it.”

He spreads his fingers. “Not a people person.”

You snort. “That’s a really shitty way to view it.”

Bro’s expressions aren’t that hard to read for you, something coded into your system that runs them across his face plain as text, but sometimes he just. Doesn’t broadcast anything at all. It’s a little more than unnerving. “S’gotten me through the past thirteen years, hasn’t it?”

“I think it’s probably unhealthy,” you say. You’ve been trying harder to, to be honest about shit. Rose would be proud. Jane might, now. You decide to tell him that. “Jane would definitely say it’s unhealthy.”

He does make a face at the mention of Crocker, and you relish in that moment. Making him feel human emotions like some kind of person is probably the cruelest, funniest thing you have been doing. “I don’t think either of us have had much in the way of healthy  _anything_  for the past week, easy,” he finally says, thoughtful.

“No,” you concede. You did end up enjoying the Chinese food more than you thought you would, and it has entered the order rotation officially. “I don’t think food habits and emotional health are intrinsically connected that way.”

He snorts. “Bet there’s a handful of experts who’d argue otherwise, but I don’t really give a shit.”

You watch him tuck his arm under his head, stare at the scar that follows the length of his bicep until it disappears into his shirt. “If I ask you a question, will you answer it honestly?”

Bro is not an inherently sincere person. You are beginning to accept that. It’s hardly a surprise, as well as you know yourself. Or think you do, anyway. Still, it’s uncomfortable watching his blank face stare at you with all the emotional range and placidity of a cardboard cutout.

“You can ask me a question,” he says, and you think well, that’s probably as good as we’re gonna get.

“Why  _do_  you let DS - Dave sleep out here? With you. You clearly don’t enjoy the company. You’ve complained about him kicking you five times -”

“Four,” he interrupts.

“Five times since you told me I could crash with you, yesterday.” You search his eyes for something. Anything. They tighten a little, at the edges, but nothing more. “But I’ve never actually seen you try to kick him out. Why?”

It is perfectly still for a long moment, and you hear the hum of the broken fridge, the cheerful tick of the analog clock, moving in sync with your heart, thumping in your ears.

Finally, he blinks, long and slow, and you curse him for his short eyelashes, just like yours, pale and useless against the sun. A silly, completely unreasonable part of you resents him for it. “He’s alone,” he says simply.

He rolls on to his back quick enough that you can’t stop a flinch, but if he’s noticed he doesn’t say, too busy yawning, rubbing at his face. He finally settles with his hand across his stomach. He does that a lot, you’ve noticed, fingers resting just below the ribs. You’re curious, but not stupid enough to ask.

“He’s also fuckin’ obsessed with me not dyin’ in my sleep, and regardless of evidence to the contrary, I cannot shake the little bastard.”

“You did almost die this summer,” you point out.

“And I haven’t since,” he counters.

“Yeah, because that fucky zoning out thing you do doesn’t reek of absence -”

“I’m fine,” he says, voice dripping like acid. He’s glaring at the ceiling, mask cracked wide open. You just can’t tell if it’s for the better. “I’ve got it under control.”

“DO you?”

He sighs out his nose, rubs at his eyes like a sleepy child. “To a point.”

You’re not so sure about that. The dude is still on meds, and while you haven’t seen any negative effects (at least none that stray from his normal angry bridge troll aesthetic), there is only so much they can do about.

Well, you know.

A giant hole in the chest.

A giant,  _metaphysical_ hole in the chest, specifically.

“If you’re not going to listen to me about the crater in your soul, you should at least go to a doctor,” you whisper. “They’ve been happening more frequently since we got back from Washington, I don’t know if -”

“He ain’t gonna do anyone any good sleeping on an air mattress,” Bro says instead. Is he -

He’s ignoring you.

He’s  _ignoring_  you?

Unbelievable.

“He gets sore, did you know that?”

You pause. You’ve seen DS wince and mutter, groan and pop when he gets up in the morning, know he was the least fond of sleeping on the floor when the girls were visiting, but you’ve thought much of it. Growing pains, maybe. “No, I - I assumed they were the growth spurt. He’s never talked to me about. Anything like that, really.”

“Yeah,” he sighs, “me neither.”

“We could have gotten bunk beds,” you say carefully. “They room is plenty big enough for -”

Bro does not speak to silence you, but when he rolls his head towards you, he doesn’t have to. “Three’s a crowd, kid. S’fine. More accessible out here, anyway.”

“You like his company,” you guess.

Bro licks his lips, sighs out his nose, scratches idly at his chest. But he does not answer you. “So you ain’t gonna sleep, huh.”

You sigh. Go fucking figure. “I don’t know if I can.”

“Well.”

You wait.

He doesn’t tell you well. He kind of just... stops there.

“Well what?”

“Hm?” Did he just fall asleep with his eyes open? No he couldn’t have. That’d be. Just the absolute freakiest thing. You would never do that. He was just thinking. That’s all.

“Well what?” you prompt.

He yawns again, tips his head back to look at you, eyes half-lidded. “Well, reckon I might be able to muster up some cliche ass dad energy, if you think you’re up do it. Get real parental in this bitch, Hallmark original and everything, an unstoppable force of plaid button-ups and putrid aftershave.” He pauses, thinks for a moment. “I’d have to grow a mustache.”

Okay, either he’s losing it, or you are. “What the fuck are you trying to say to me?”

He rolls his eyes. “I’m offerin’ to drive you around the block ‘til you fall asleep. If you want.”

Bro’s smiling now, but it feels disingenuous, and therefore ultimately untrustworthy.

Not to say you hate the idea, in its entirety. You’ve gotten over most of your car sickness, as long as you’re in the front seat, and Bro’s truck is probably the safest place you could be.

Still.

“And leave Bro here?”

He frowns. “You... can’t call him that.”

You stare. “I can’t help it, he’s my Bro. I’ve always called him that.”

He glares. “And now you can call him something else.”

You scoff, fight a smile, lose. “Okay, well. I don’t think I should have to, but fine.” You mull that over, bite the inside of your cheek, try to keep any hint of being shitty off your face. “Are you gonna call him Dave, too?”

He scowls. “No.”

“Why not? You just said -”

“He ain’t my Dave,” he says, sighs softly, looks back at you, a kind of challenge there you don’t know how to interpret. You still can’t get used to that. His tendency to warp your face into expressions you didn’t even realize you were capable of, and you hate the lines on his face, bags bruised blue and tired frowns. You wonder if you’re the same, will be the same.

You chew on your own thoughts for a minute before speaking. “Do you think I should talk to him?”

You can’t pretend to  _get_ Bro, because you don’t, really, but there are things you see in him at times like these that you at least recognize. His eyes crinkle around the corner in a bare, genuine way, and you know you’re not imagining the lilt at the corner of his lips. “Don’t you think that question answers itself?”

He’s cryptically unhelpful, constant enough it’s a wonder you haven’t (metaphorically, of course) killed the dude, but there is truth to those words, something you can understand. “Yeah, I - I guess.” You push yourself up, rake a hand back through your hair. “I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t make me wait up,” he says dryly, but you know he will, even if he won’t say it.

  
You knock on the door lightly, and it feels weird, because this is your room, you know that, but you’re definitely the creep here, intruding in the middle of the goddamn night like a specter demanding attention.

So you stand there, door cracked, and you don’t know what to say.

You’re not wearing your shades and for a moment you panic, consider going back, grabbing Hal. Hal would know what to say.

But fuck, you’ve spent months taking care of your own conversations and even if you’re not doing a good job it’s still  _you_ doing it, and that means something.

Fuck.

“Bro?” you murmur into the quiet, do not wince when you year the bed shift, see his silhouette outlined against the street light. He’s not wearing his shades, either, and for a moment, raised up on one elbow, you just see Dave. It’s too much.

It’s too much because he’s here and he’s Dave, just like any other Dave, but this one

Well he’s your brother, anyway.

“Dirk?” he rasps, and you step back without meaning to.

“I,” you start, catch yourself on the door frame. No, Jesus Christ, you’re more capable than this. Chill out. Get it together. “Uh. Just wondering if you were awake. My mistake, I am aware it’s late, I’ll just. I can just -”

“No,” he says quickly. “No, nah.” He waves an arm at you in a beckoning gesture, though it’s awkward, and he almost smacks himself in the face. “Fuck, c’mere, c’mon, it’s your bed isn’t it? Shit, dude, come make yourself at home.” He pauses, and when he sits up you notice he’s not wearing a shirt, but why would he, it’s fucking late, he was sleeping. You think it’s a bit cold for that but what the fuck do you know? “Uh,” he says, and he’s all Just Dave again. “Because it is. Your home, I mean. Obviously. Duh.”

You do smile then, pad gingerly across the room. You know the cord placement by heart, could walk it in your sleep. You sit on the edge of the bed as careful as you can, stare at the floor.

You don’t know what to say. That’s the worst part. You’ve told him. Well. The basics. Your general life story. You scramble for something, anything.

Shit.

Apologize, right? For whatever he perceived as an insult.

You should apologize.

Right?

He breaks the silence, knuckles gently knocking at your arm. “Hey, what’s up, lil dude?”

“You can’t call me that,” you say dryly.

He raises an eyebrow, and it’s fucking weird, how open he is. So completely opposite of Bro, with lines that tug at his bare eyes, the corners of his mouth when he smiles. “Why not?”

“Because,” you say, and if you sound defensive, so fucking be it. “I’m almost as tall as you are.”

“Well -” He huffs, and this close you can see his torso littered with scars. Some match up pretty close with the stories, urban legend and otherwise. You guess humanity wasn’t too far off, after all. That’s not as disappointing as you imagined. “Okay, but shut up. You’re still a kid.

That fills you with a warmth you can’t explain, fondness and surprise, a delighted little thrill in your chest. You never expected to ever get the chance to deal with this specific stereotype. “Haha,” you say. “Yeah.”

“So,” and you can tell he’s hedging. Dave does this when he’s nervous. Fuck, you really don’t want to make your bro nervous. “What’s up?”

All you can do is shrug, look back down at the floor. “I just. Couldn’t sleep.” That’s a lie. Or at least a half-truth.

“Hey, man, that’s - that’s okay. I mean shit, look at us. Look at all this. How the fuck could you even sleep? That’s some goddamn garbage to absorb in less’n twenty-four hours.”

You can’t quite mask your skepticism, make a face. “You were asleep, though.”

He wheezes a soft laugh. “M’older than you. I get tired, dude. It was a long first day.” He pauses, sighs, long and slow. “Fuck, it’s gonna be a long second life.”

You’re staring.

You shouldn’t stare.

He’s pale across the torso, and you can see his farmer’s tan, one on his wrist, on up at the bicep, and you fight down the amusement that crawls up the back of your throat. You don’t think you ever actually saw him in many t-shirts, not in all the footage you’ve ever found, but he must’ve worn them, surely.

You see it, then, in the center of his chest, like a sliver of a starburst but stretched thin, blinding white like it’s faded with time.

You think back to Bro, to his hand, delicately placed at the center of his sternum. You feel, suddenly, violently ill.

“Dirk? Lil - uh. Dude?”

You do not know how Bro died. You have an extremely clear picture in your mind of precisely how your Dave died. The similarity is striking, a pattern, stabbed through the chest, like Davesprite, like Dave when he _died_ , when you failed and everything fell apart and

Something warm on your shoulder and you’re up in a heartbeat, sword in hand, feet squared just like you were taught, precise and poised and dangerous.

Dave- fuck, Bro - fuck, you don’t know. You have to call him something. You have to. He’s looking at you with his eyes wide open, and he looks younger, uncertain, maybe a little guilty.

Fuck.

_Fuck._

“Sorry,” you say. “Sorry, I’m a little. Just jumpy still, I guess. I try not to be,” you add quickly, fingers clenched around the weapon. “It’s completely unintentional, I would never harm anyone innocent, that isn’t -”

“Dirk,” he says, and it’s kind, and you see Roxy’s face there, pity you don’t want, kindness you don’t - you don’t need.

But you want it

Desperately.

He holds out his hand and you know what he’s asking, place the blade there as carefully as you can. He takes it and there’s something like pain, like grief, that flashes across his face. “Never thought I’d see this thing again,” he says conversationally.

“It was,” you start, stop. Try to breathe. Fuck, you’re still trying to relax. “It was among my things. In the apartment. I was never sure if you truly meant to leave it for me or if you just...” Forgot it. Left it behind like all the things he would leave behind for you, that he would never live to see.

“I wondered whether it might last that long,” he confesses, though his smile is fond. “I never imagined you would - use it, I guess. I mean Rose told me you’d need to protect yourself, but I shouldn’t have left it where an infant could reach it oh god what as I thinking?”

“I believe it to have been the overall best decision,” you say, watch him balance it on his fingertips without a care in the world. “I was never afraid when I had it by my side. Admittedly, it did take some time for me to learn. It’s hardly the right size when you’re barely ten, but.” You offer him a thin smile. “I never did put it down again, after that.”

He stares at it, then up at you, and you see Roxy there again, eyebrows perfectly tipped up in the middle, like a cartoon, like something you’re not ready to face. “Ten,” he whispers. A statement, not a question.

“Drones,” you explain. “I suspect I did not see nearly as much proper combat as you did. I spent most of my time flipping the fuck out with my sword and sparring robots. However, I think ultimately it did have a purpose, and I am thankful to have inherited it, despite the fact that it is damaged now.”

“Hey, I wasn’t gonna ask.” He gives you a grin, though it’s shaky, uneven, and you know Dave’s face well enough to know he’s hiding something from you. Albeit poorly. “I broke a fair number of shitty swords in my day. This piece of shit is the only thing I’d never managed to fuck up.” He lifts it, tips it to inspect the broken edge. “Clean cut, almost completely horizontal. I’m impressed. How did the fuck did you manage this?”

You CANNOT tell him that right now. You just can’t. Your bro does not need to know about your fucked up death, nor the finality it would have had without Jane there to fix your - well you loathe to call it a mistake but.

Sacrifice is such a heavy word.

“It was,” you choke, “a stupid, debatably heroic move on my part. I made a choice. I’m okay, but my katana... paid the price, as it were.”

Dave stares. “I didn’t like the sound of any of that,” he says slowly. “But in my experience ‘heroic moves’ don’t usually end up well for the person performing them.” His gaze is steady, brows knit just enough to broadcast how unhappy he is. There is a question there, but it’s not the same as before. There’s no gentleness to him. He is not asking, not really. You remember him as the leader of a rebellion, but you suppose you never really attached the face to that title, especially not one that you’ve watched soften for the past seven months. To lie to him, to genuinely lie, would be to go against everything you believe in, not just as a Dave, but as your bro, The Bro you grew up with so much respect and admiration for it crushed you under its weight.

You dig around, try to find something, anything. Your brain is quick, but you’re not entirely sure how adept you truly are at fibbing, face to face.

You offer a pathetic smile. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

Dave’s face is stony for a moment, and you think _shit_ , he’s caught you at your game. But then he drops his shoulders, lets the sword rest against on his lap. “Gonna be honest, kid, that isn’t nearly as reassuring as you think it is. Here, c’mere.” He pats the spot on the bed beside him.

You hesitate.

He frowns, and you think about how weird the whole thing feels, how you offered to let him sleep here and now you’re.

Christ, you’re fucking everything up.

“You don’t have to,” he says gently.

“I know,” you rush, rock back on your heels. You feel exposed, your legs are cold, and you desperately wish for your Hero hoodie.

Fuck, at this point you’d take Dave’s, even if he never - ugh - washed it.

“I guess maybe we still don’t know each other well enough for me to parent talk you,” he says, sighs a little. “Honestly I never had much in the way of family, neither, so I’m probably not the best person for the job.”

“I don’t know if we ever will reach that level,” you admit, but not unkindly. “I made it sixteen years without any kind of adult supervision, and at this point it seems a little unreasonable to expect me to follow any set of rules on that specific front.”

“You’re mouthy,” he says, but he sounds pleased. “Shit, you’d probably eat the education system alive.”

“I am, as far as we are aware, not public record.” You shrug. “Though quite frankly were there ever a hypothetical situation that required me to attend high school, I rather like to think I would, and I am not really paraphrasing here, fucking crush that shit.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” he laughs, and then he hands the sword back to you, careful as anything. He watches you take it without blinking, switching from your right hand to your left on automatic. You pause when he makes a soft sound of surprise, suddenly self-conscious. “You a lefty? Or just ambi?”

“I would like to think of myself as simply dexterous, regardless of the task,” you say, and can’t help sounding smug, and your katana is back in your ‘dex with the flick of a hand. It feels better, really, more comfortable. Reliable as a weapon, always. “However, I do favor my left. Always have. I have come to find it runs in the family, and the thought is overall quite comforting. Especially now that I have one. A family, I mean,” you add, awkwardly.

That does something weird and alarmingly sad to his face that you do not like, not one fucking bit. Panic chokes you. “Dirk -”

“Do you want to,” you blurt, like a braindead moron, “go for a car ride?”

He blinks, eyebrows skyrocketing into his hairline. “Do I - like a dog?” he asks weakly.

That pulls a laugh out of you that is genuine as much as it is startled. He really is just the same, isn’t he? Why did you  _say_ it that way? What the fuck? “I couldn’t - Bro offered to uh. We’re just gonna drive around the block a couple times. It calms my nerves, sometimes.” Once. You’ve done this once. You don’t know what you’re fucking talking about.

He stares at your blankly. You kind of flounder.

“You don’t have to accompany us. I am aware it sounds preposterous, and of course to interrupt you when you were already sleeping is just. Asinine, really.” Wait. “Holy fuck just astronomical levels of idiotic, isn’t it? Jesus Christ what was I _thinking_?”

He cracks a grin at that, and it almost miffs you, how easily he emotes, when it took so long to eke the same response out of Dave. You guess it’s different paces for different Daves. You don’t love him any less for it.

And can you even say you love him? This Dave? You hardly know him. You don’t - you  _don't_  know him. You have a preconceived notion of who you _want_  him to be, or needed him to be, at one point in time.

“Yeah,” he says around a hysterical little laugh. “Yeah, man, I’ll go on a fuckin’ car ride.” He pushes himself up with a groan, and you stare at your computer desk while he gets dressed, just to be polite. You should ask Bro to give him something else to sleep in, you think, when you crane your head over your shoulder to see him smoothing his rumpled, expensive ass suit. It’s almost kind of depressing, in a way. Dressed for a funeral, you guess.

_Jesus Christ, Dirk.  
_

You head back into the living room with Dave in tow, and you don’t know if it’s because he heard you, or  _is_ you, but Bro is standing by the door wearing pretty much[ the ugliest hoodie you have ever seen in your entire life](https://www.dhresource.com/0x0s/f2-albu-g7-M00-E2-C3-rBVaSVtsaeyAPtnoABBNGlKm1UE257.jpg/new-3d-print-ugly-christmas-sweatshirt-santa.jpg), one hand shoved in the pocket and the other rolling his keys over his fingers.

He’s also not wearing his shades, although you see them there, perched on top of his head like some kind of bizarre sports dad. He eyes your bro before looking at you. “Don’t remember nothin’ about a plus one.” His voice is slow, careful. He’s testing the waters, his eyebrows all askance. He’s,

You think this is him trying to be nice.

You are almost certain that is exactly what is going on here.

“I invited him,” you say, before Dave can open his mouth. You know now how important it can be, not letting a Dave speak.

“I don’t think asking someone if they want to go on a car ride, like I’m some kinda glorified retriever, is the same thing as invitin’ them,” Dave says anyway.

This one’s a little harder to stop, you can see already. You guess you should have expected that, and you fight a smile.

“Please,” Bro drawls, yanking the door open and pausing there a moment, “you’re a terrier, at best.”

Your Dave makes a sound that dies in the back of his throat, something in between distress and dismay, and you  _definitely_ cannot smile now, because that would mean Bro has won.

It is obvious, however, that he knows he has, because he shoulders around the door and walks away, leaving you to flash after him before he ditches you completely.

Absolutely fucking dick.

  
“Crazy that the thing hasn’t fallen apart at all,” Dave says as he steps out of the elevator first. He’s been talking from the second you stepped into the damn thing. “It was a piece of junk even before I kicked it, you know? I don’t know if the maintenance man ever even touched the damn thing. I’ve lost track of the amount’a times I had to take the stairs. How does yours even still _run_?”

This question is directed at Bro, and you turn towards him, eyebrow up. He shrugs. “S’not that hard to fix yourself.”

That doesn’t sound even remotely true, you think.

And then your realize.

Of course shit hasn’t fallen apart under Bro’s careful hand, he’s you, he can take of that shit on his own, probably would even if no one asked him (and you are almost certain, in this instance, that absolutely no one did).

You did it yourself from necessity, as a kid, growing up - fixed things, you mean. The elevator was long gone before you ever got there, a long empty shaft that spelled nothing for you but death.

You don’t have to worry about that now.

Your bro makes a small noise of interest, looking back at the elevator before hop-skipping to catch up with Bro.

What startles you the most is seeing them beside each other, you think. Your - okay, let’s call him Dave for now. You’re gonna go insane otherwise. Anyway, he’s not too much shorter than Bro, and fuck, the Daves are gonna be pissed about it, once they get over the initial shock.

It’s remarkably like seeing you and Dave side by side, though not quite as literal as. Well, the whole thing, really. They match stride well, in a way that can’t be on purpose, although there is annoyance in this Dave’s face, when he tips it up to glance Bro’s way. You wonder what he must think of him - of you.

It isn’t a fair comparison, you know, because you’ve been talking to Dave about not doing that anymore, and perhaps a bit with Rose, if only recently (Roxy agrees with you more than anyone, and you think it is just more likely that you both recognize your own flaws, and can see the most fractured pieces of yourselves inside your doubles).

The bottom line is, you’re not supposed to be doing this. Cruelty is not beyond you, far from it, but you are not Bro, and you never will be, because you are going to be better, do better, and fuck you, you have a goddamn support team.

There are pieces he could not control, of course - you didn’t have a fucked up Mary Poppins puppet inbred with a juggalo so that’s. Something.

And because you don’t have that excuse (and it is an excuse, at the base of it all), you cannot permit yourself the particular brand of merciless maladjustment he broadcasts. You won’t. It’s a choice, and you fucking made it.

You realize, looking at them, at the fond way that Dave squints, how Bro does not put much effort into the way he bends away from him, that your bro does not know any of this. To him, Bro is just another shiny, brand new Dirk to play with.

Um.

You could have worded that better.

Kinder.

“Jesus Christ,” Dave finally says, stutters to a stop as Bro steps up to his battered old truck. “Tell me this piece of junk isn’t yours.”

The look Bro sends him is not masked, not even remotely, and you feel like you need to step in.

But then your bro - shit, Dave - laughs, wanders over, smooths a hand across the side. “Fuck, haven’t seen this old thing since -” His breath catches, and his back to you, you don’t know what kind of face he’s making.

Whatever it is, Bro doesn’t seem to like it. Or maybe he’s surprised. The way his expression changes in the dim garage light is minor, and without so much as a brow twitch, it can be hard to tell. Then he frowns, looks away, clears his throat. Awkward. Uncomfortable. You wonder at that. “You gonna kiss it or get in?”

“What? Wait, hey, fuck you, man!” Dave drags his hand along the edge of the bed as he goes around, like he’s afraid if he lets go that the whole thing will disappear. “Look, I JUST rose from the dead, okay, I think I’ve earned a minute of nostalgic reminiscing about a truck I haven’t seen since the early goddamn nineties.”

Bro pinches his lips together, sighs out his nose, then opens the door and climbs in without a word.

Dave frowns at that, stuck between saying something and. You’re not sure. You’ve never known any Dave to be particularly good at keeping their mouth shut. Then he notices you hanging back and offers a slanted smile. “Look, I may be limber, but there’s no fucking way I’m fittin’ in the middle here.”

That is.

Okay, that’s fair, but it’ll leave you pressed right up against Bro and.

Well you’ve gotten this far, haven’t you?

Fuck it?

Maybe??

“I think this is wholly unfair, considering _I_  invited _you_ ,” you say, ducking around him and yanking the door open when Bro finally reaches over and unlocks it, “but I will acquiesce because you are my older brother, and because I respect you.”

“That’s,” he chokes, “really mature of you.”

“It’s probably just because he wants to stick his head out the window,” Bro drawls, and Dave sputters.

You wonder, hysterically, if this is going to be your new normal.

You worm in first, try not to feel self-conscious about the way you and Bro squish together like sardines, but he doesn’t seem any happier than you. You’re careful with your legs, don’t ram them into the clutch, and in true Strider fashion, Dave manages to clamber in and fold himself up small enough that there’s plenty of room for you. You feel quite suddenly like you are some kind of younger brother, and then realize oh FUCK, you _are_ , aren’t you?

You’re the little brother here.

Hey what the

What the _fuck_.

“So,” Dave says, and you get the idea that you shouldn’t let him finish, “where we headed, kids?”

Bro jerks his head to look at you, raises an eyebrow. That’s fair. You did, after all, tell him the basic idea already. Maybe he didn’t really get it? Maybe it was a joke? You don’t know this Dave well enough to tell.

“Uh,” you say, clear your throat. “Probably just around the block for a bit? Maybe to um.” Shit, what’s open now? Denny’s? Waffle House? It’s too late for Taco Bell, tragically (you found that out a couple weeks ago - who the fuck closes at 2 am? Heresy), and you’re not really hungry, just nervous.

“I’ll drive the outer edge of downtown, we’ll stop by a fucking Waffle House if you have to piss,” Bro says for you, and then he hooks an arm behind his headrest and twists around to back up.

You watch Dave open his mouth, close it, and decide you don’t really want to let him follow this train of thought any further.

“Let’s all agree this was a terrible idea,” you sigh, rub your eyes in irritation. You should have brought Hal. You should bring up Hal to, to everyone. Shit.

“The only terrible part is that I agreed to it,” Bro mutters.

“You offered,” you remind him.

“And I regret it,” he grunts, pulling out onto the street. “I’ll give you thirty minutes and if you still ain’t in dreamland I’ll take you to the damn Waffle House. Pinky promise.”

“Can it be IHOP instead?” Dave asks.

“ _No_ ,” both of you scoff.

He muffles a laugh behind his palm.

  
Bro does take the route downtown first, and it’s kind of beautiful in its own way, you think, towers all lit up like hives on top of hives. Light that moves across the hood, flashes across your faces. It’s peaceful, nice.

For about thirty fucking seconds. It’s your fault, really.

Dave runs a reverent hand across the dashboard, a small smile you almost miss crossing his face and fading into something neutral.

“You know the truck,” you say, knock your knee against his. You put on pants before you left, and they’re still cold on the skin. You are almost certain they are Dave’s. They definitely aren’t very comfortable.

“Yeah it’s uh.” He lets out a gust of air, then looks at you with that same vulnerable smile. “It was my first car, right back when I still had a learner’s. Sixteen and smug as fuck, can you believe it?” It doesn’t take a lot to imagine, really. “I loved the absolute shit out of this thing. Was noisy as hell when I got it. I think I dropped more money fixing it the first year than I paid for it.” He pats the dash and you glance at Bro. His face is cold and distant, which should be a warning. “Got me all the way to Cali, though it choked before I reached Hollywood, poor sucker.”

“It choked because you didn’t take care of it,” Bro says, and you hear the warning there.

Dave huffs. “When the fuck would I have time to learn how to fix cars?”

“Maybe in the moments in between having your head shoved up your ass.”

And okay, whoa, so Bro is defensive about the truck. You aren’t that surprised really. You’re sure Dave would be the same way if he heard... Dave talking smack.

“I don’t mind it,” you say desperately. “It’s comfortingly vintage, though given my timeline, all cars seems vintage, from that standpoint, so perhaps that isn’t fair. Still, to be quite frank, there is something satisfying about keeping any kind of mechanical item running for a long time. Especially,” you add, looking at Dave, flicking your eyes to Bro and back, “when there is sentiment attached.”

Bro grunts.

Dave stares, speechless, and you can see the loss in his face. He genuinely doesn’t know how to handle Bro. You can’t blame him. Sometimes, neither do you. You nudge his leg reassuringly, and he finally smiles. “You did say you like to fix things.”

“Robots mostly,” you say. “Like I said, not much in the way of cars available back then. The garage was far beyond gone and even if it wasn’t there’s no way I could ever dive deep enough to reach. The pressure probably woulda killed me.” You pause. “Maybe. I guess I’ll never know, now.”

“And you shouldn’t try,” he rushes. You look at him and he sighs, drags a hand through his hair. “Jesus, morbid. Remind me never to take you to the beach.”

“I haven’t ever been to a real beach,” you admit. You’ve seen them in movies, of course. Sand, sun, people screaming in delight. Little umbrellas for. Actually you’re still not sure. You know that yes, there were sometimes sharks, know that beaches. Smell good? There was no beach in Houston, 2424, and beyond the taste of salt that clung to the air, the sting of seaweed and fish that burned itself into your nose, you’ve never actually touched foot on sand (you hardly expect a lake in Washington to count, all grey sand and murky, grass-heavy waters).

“Okay, that’s actually really fucking sad? We’ll go sometime,” Dave says, knocks his knee back against yours. “I’ll take you myself. We can build a fucking castle, whatever you want. It’ll kick ass.”

You don’t know how to respond to that. So you say, “Thank you.”

  
Bro loops back around through a familiar route, further from downtown, and when he turns a corner, you could swear that everything stops, just for a second. And if your breath catches, if you choke when you see that normally blank billboard, neither of them say anything.

“Oh fuck,” Dave does say, when he sees it. “Shit, it really  _is_  2012, isn’t it?”

The billboard has been empty for _months_ , has been an ache in your chest, like it was taunting you, mocking you in all your hopelessness.

Maybe it was just a (quite literal) sign. Maybe you should have been less pessimistic.

You have never seen the full Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff billboard, trapped under water, peeled and faded with age.

It’s just as insanely bright and terrible as you always it would be, and you can’t stop yourself from smiling.

“I should probably call my production manager in the morning,” Dave says glumly, while you think about taking out your phone and texting Roxy to tell her. Not that she’ll be awake, ‘course, you just.

Wow. There it is.

“That’s an eyesore,” Bro says, but you think he sounds proud. Maybe. It’s always hard to tell with him. He’s aware of Dave’s comics, you know, have seen the open tabs he keeps on his computer, know he’s pretty much up to date on everything he’s ever been involved in. Perhaps there is some sincerity to that, after all.

Or at least, you’d like to think so.

“Yeah,” Dave sighs, breathlessly fond. “Yeah, it is. That was, what? Third movie? Seventh? I have such a hard time keeping up with those fucking things. God, why did I have them impossible names?”

“It’s the sixth,” you mumble, and then confess, when Dave’s head whips around to look at you, that is was your favorite.

“No shit?” he squeaks, and yeah, he’s a Dave. You watch him squirm a little, struggle with finding an appropriate and acceptable way to ask you what you really think. Eventually he settles on, “You liked - that shit survived?”

“Not easily,” you admit. “I tried to get them legally whenever I could - barring the ones I found in the crawl space,” you add, and Bro snorts softly enough you almost miss it. “Given my circumstances, however, we will say Roxy had more to do with the actual theft of property than I ever did.”

He laughs, high and shrill, and you are certain you are imagining the way his ears darken. “Hell yeah, stickin’ it to the man. In this case, me. I am the man, and I am so cool with being stuck to. Fuck yeah.” He offers you a bump, and you could almost just. Piss yourself in fucking joy when you bump him back.

You feel even more embarrassed than ever, sitting by The Dave Strider, gushing like some kina buck wild super fan who pirates dvds and makes bizarre macaroni art to show your dedication. And you definitely haven’t done anything of the sort, probably not since you were five, tops.

“Want I should stop so you can take a fucking picture?” Bro is being a dick just to be a dick, but you elbow him gently and he goes quiet.

“That’s,” Dave fumbles, “cool. Really cool. Fuck yeah, little dude.” He pauses, looks back out the window. “Guess I’m gonna have to remake all those, huh? Holy fucking shit I can’t even remember half the garbage I did. Probably won’t need the big anti-big fish propaganda, huh?”

“Yeah,” you say, feel too nervous to pat his shoulder. “But you could just like. Leave it in. For the rest of us, or posterity’s sake. I might still have some of the later tapes in my things?”

He looks at you, eyebrows up, sincerity painted across his face. “Yeah?”

Your mouth curves on its own. “Yeah.”

You shoot the shit for the next ten minutes about SBaHJ (you could do this for hours goddamn), and he drills you, fuckin’  _drills_ you on plot points.

His face when Bro answers a question of two (some of Dave’s earlier work is a perfect mirror of the comic, and you think Bro gets smug satisfaction from watching him gape like a big mouth bass) is hi-fuckin’-larious, stuck between indignation and delight, even if it is, in truth, a bit mean-spirited. Bro does not explain how he knows, not even when Dave begs.

It doesn’t take long for him to fall asleep after that, and you’re not surprised, either, just snicker silently, bump Bro when he’s at a stoplight and nod at him.

Bro snorts, soft, an almost laugh, but it is gentler, almost kind. “Figures.”

“I don’t think that was going to play out any other way,” you say, keep your voice low.

Dave attempts to saw a log.

“No, I didn’t reckon it would,” Bro sighs, curving back around the block again. You pass the hotel where Roxy and Rose usually stay, spare a moment to think about the pool. “I’m kinda surprised he lasted that long.”

“Yeah.” You look at Dave, all folded into the window, unbothered by the way his cheek is smashed up against the glass, neck bent at an uncomfortable angle. There are circles under his eyes, lines that don’t quite disappear when his face is neutral. “After all the shit he went through, surviving an alien invasion as long as he did, and it turns out his one and only weakness is a car ride.”

Bro is quiet for a beat, then two. “No shit?”

You don’t have to ask what he means.

You’ve never told him about your bro, and you reckon he’s earned the right to know.

Maybe?

“Mm, him and Roxy’s mom. Rose,” you tell him. “They were braver than most people of their time. I don’t think humanity would have lasted as long as they did without them.”

He hums, but it’s with interest. “You admire him,” he says thoughtfully.

“Yes,” you say, and if you tones is suspicious, perhaps a touch defensive, then so be it. “Do you. Have a problem with that?”

Bro rolls to a stop in the middle of the road. It’s empty at this hour, but the anxiety pools in your gut anyway. He is very quiet and very still, and you worry for a second that he’s having an absence seizure. Then he flexes his fingers, drums a beat on the wheel. “No,” he says simply, and reaches over you to flip on the heater.

  
Bro finally takes you back home when your head keeps knocking into his shoulder on accident, but he doesn’t complain about it, and he’s warmth against your side, a hard, uncomfortable pillow you can’t really lean away from. If it bothers him, he doesn’t mention it.

You run into the problem when you park. Unexpected, now a conundrum; you have no idea how to wake your bro up.

“Um,” you say.

“Go upstairs,” Bro says as he slips out of the driver’s side, waves you after him. He shoves his keys into your hands. “I’ll take care of it."

You have no idea what that means, and you waver, one foot poised to go, consider telling him “no.”

The look he gives you is firm, and when he raises his eyebrows, it opens him like a book - for a fraction of a moment you read sincerity, amusement. Then it’s gone. Still, his voice is not unkind when he repeats, “I’ll take care of it.”

You nibble on your lip a minute, but you’ve got to make a decision. You either trust the guy for once, or you don’t.

You breathe in, exhale, turn on your heel, and head upstairs.

When Bro brings Dave up it is almost comical. Dave keeps bumping into him, muttering under his breath and rubbing his eyes. Bro practically manhandles him past you towards the bedroom, and you almost miss the blood staining the corner of his hoodie.

Almost.

Dave slurs out a goodnight to you as he passes, and you are stuck pacing for a good thirteen minutes (not that you’re counting you wouldn’t you wouldn’t count) before Bro returns from the bathroom.

He’s got the hoodie under his arm and you have to squint in the dim light to see the thin line that curves up his chin.

“What the fuck,” you his, reach out to turn his face towards you and

He immediately snatches it away, grip too hard, a touch too violent. “It’s fine,” he says evenly.

“What happened,” you demand, yank backwards. He doesn’t let go. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do shit.” You have never seen him more calm.

It’s.

Terrifying.

You’re so surprised when he wraps his whole hand around your wrist, hefting you up, that you almost don’t register the pain until he’s moved you aside and dropped you, so hard your knees crack in protest.

“What the _fuck_ ,” you yelp, but he ignores you, crawls back onto the futon and starts rearranging the blankets.

“Go to bed.”

“That isn’t an answ-”

“Go to sleep, Dirk.”

“We’re talking about this in the morning,” you say, but you acquiesce. There’s no point fighting him right now, there never is. If he’s ignoring you, he won’t fall for your tricks.

“Goodnight,” you offer to the back of his head, uncertain, something leaning towards discomfort.

He doesn’t say it back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this pre update and I'm hoping that the next chapters bring us a little more cheer because I think we could all use it!


	35. remonstrance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirk verbally wrestles with two versions of himself that both him, and aren't him, and none of it really amounts to much of anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!! This is essentially a filler/prep chapter! And exists mostly for fun, but I think that's okay!  
> CW for Bro being Bro, and Dirk and Hal getting more meta than I'm comfortable with. :\  
> (quiet dedication to [peonies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peonies), whose ceaseless encouragement is what helps me limp gently over hurdles i don't know how to approach <33 )

Bro does not want to talk about it in the morning. Of course he fucking doesn’t, because he’s Bro, and if you’ve learned anything at this point, it’s that the man is incapable of prolonged sincerity. You hate that about him, how he so easily reminds you of the worst versions of yourself, so easily sends you spiraling and honestly, you’re really fucking tired of it.

If he thinks you’re not going to follow after him because he runs away, he’s got a big storm comin’.

You wonder if Dave has seen that yet, and if he hasn’t, if you should risk the incomparable joy of organic meme discovery for the sheer delight seeing his face will bring you. Yes, this  _does_ in fact spark joy.

You will also need to be careful, you think, to keep the memetic timeline intact, on top of it all.

You decide to drop the Dave thing, if only because the little wail of agony your bro made when he saw Bro’s jaw in the morning is enough of an indication that it was probably an accident. You’re trying not to worry about that.

What’s bothering you now is the very real possibility that Bro could have a seizure in front of your Dave, and you think Bro should tell him.

He think you should go fuck yourself.

You’re a bit at odds over it.

  
“I really don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation,” you say, crossing your legs over each other. The porcelain is cold against the back of your thighs.

“I don’t think you understand that when the door is locked, it means don’t fucking come in,” Bro grunts, stepping into the shower. He throws his boxers at you, and you duck to avoid them. Like that would actually stop you. Please, you’re not a child.

“It’s important,” you say. “What the fuck are you gonna do if you freak the fuck out in front of the guy? Laugh it off? Fuck you, that would never work. He’s a Dave. You know damn well how they can be.”

“Hasn’t happened yet,” he sighs, but you hear the exasperation in his tone. He wants you to leave.

Hell,  _you_ want you to leave.

But you haven’t convinced him yet and what can you say? You’re stubborn. It’s far from your worst trait.

“I’m pretty sure you dying on his watch would devastate not only him, but Dave and DS as well.” It’s a low blow, but if it’s the only thing that will get to him, it may as well be now, when the only way he can retaliate involves stepping out of the shower buck fucking naked.

(Not that you’d put it past him. He’s you, and you sincerely doubt he’s got half as many hang ups about his body. Ugh. Weird.)

“Why do you call him that?” he asks you, and you have to pause, rewind, and hit replay.

It surprises you. You’ve never really thought about it, it’s becomes such an ingrained habit, and it hardly makes a difference. They’re both Dave, even if they’re different versions of the same dude. But it matters to them, so it matters to you. Hardly a new pattern there, and it’s almost laughable now that Hal is back.

Christ, is your life a comedy routine?

“It’s an inside joke of sorts. Double meaning, but only if you know to look for it,” you say finally, when you realize you’ve just been running internal monologue for a solid minute, easy. He probably doesn’t care. “He spent so long insisting he was Davesprite, and being that the initials we all share are, obviously, DS, it’s a logical conclusion to arrive at. A differential indicator used to keep them straight in my head. Variations on a theme, an individualized nickname to promote and express affection. I guess. I don’t mind giving up one old nickname to someone who could use it more.” He’s never complained, of course, but why would he? Your relationship with him as a Dave is still so fragile in ways you never expected to be problems. You tilt your head on habit, despite the fact that he cannot see you. “Why, don’t you have a way to differentiate?”

“No,” he says simply. “I don’t need one. They’re both Dave to me.”

You don’t know what to say to that. You guess you don’t really know anything about the way he views them. You’ve never thought to ask.

It bothers you.

“I think that’s probably problematic, in that it negates their identities as separate entities,” you say anyway, just to argue. That’s childish. Sometimes when it comes to Bro, you just can’t help it.

Jesus fuck, you’re turning into Hal.

“It’s not,” Bro says, “and it doesn’t. We’ve talked about it. Dave and Dave aren’t the same person, but they’re both still my Dave.”

It’d be touching, if it were anyone else.

But it’s not, so you frown. “But this Dave isn’t your Dave.”

“Nope.”

“He’s also from a different timeline,” you point out.

“Yup,” he says.

You huff, irritated. “So you’re not Dave’s Bro, either.”

“That doesn’t matter,” he says simply. “And it’s none of your business.”

That’s a nerve. You back down. “You’re impossible.”

“And you’re a pain in the ass.”

“I’m also right,” you say, roll your neck so your joints crack. “You have to tell him about your seizures.”

“Can’t tell him about something that ain’t happening.” Bro is, of course, at least as stubborn as you. It’s grating on your nerves. 

“But they might.”

“But they won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“And neither do you.”

You groan, shake your leg uselessly. There is nothing actually stopping you from telling your bro yourself, you are aware of that. But if you were him (and you kind of are, at least some days), you would want to make the choice yourself. You have to try. “This is getting us nowhere. I am not asking you because I think that this is a fun little get to know you fact that will bring us all closer as friends and help us build as a family. Sure as fuck won’t make anything about our friendship magical.”

“We are not friends,” he snorts, but you think he sounds amused.

“I am so completely aware of that fact that you even speaking it aloud makes it ten times more redundant than our mutual and parallel existence. You need to tell Dave because it concerns his well-being, and that matters to me.”

Bro goes very quiet and you imagine he’s probably ignoring you again. He’s pretty good at it, in a way none of your friends ever were (except Jake, you guess, but that’s depressing, and you’d rather not think about it), and it irks you that you never learned to escape yourself, and yet here he is, like you couldn’t say a single thing that could possibly upset him.

“I mean it,” you say, just in case, and also to be a little shitty.

It surprises you when he sighs, loud enough that you can hear, which means he’s doing it solely for your benefit. “I know.”

“Is that a yes, you’ll tell him?” you press, because your shades are starting to fog up and you really want to leave. Humidity’s mad nasty on the hairdo, and you can feel your bangs starting to stick to your face.

“We’ll see,” he says.

That’s. Almost a yes, you guess.

And then your gut sinks as Pesterchum flashes, and you tug your shades up on top of you head to get away from the blistering red text before you can even see it.

This is the part that sucks.

“There’s something else I have to tell you,” you say, and you press both thumbs against the bridge of your nose in preparation for the headache.

And also to hide your face.

You’ve been planning this moment for the past 24 hours, but now that it’s here, you find yourself hesitating. It shouldn’t be a big deal, it’s not even the first time you’ve had to tell someone, but something about it being him makes the whole thing so much harder.

The only sound for a solid thirty seconds is the beat of water against the shower floor. His silence implies the sigh. When you don’t speak he finally caves. “I can already tell this is very much gonna be a _‘I wish you never told me’_ situation. So you may as well spill it while I’ve got some patience left to offer.”

“I can wait for the bar to reload,” you say weakly, but then stop yourself. Ugh, no, you’re being dumb. You do have to tell him. You owe it to Hal, and if he finds out later it’ll just make the whole situation worse.

“Dirk,” he says on an exhalation, and it’s the tone that gets you. You’ve never heard him talk to you like that before.

You wait.

He doesn’t say anything else.

Well. That’s. Okay, you suppose.

“There is no way I can say this that doesn’t sound insane,” you say slowly, with trepidation. You drop your hands, look at them. Press your thumb to the callus just below your ring finger. “To say that I’ve fractured would be pretentious, but to call the pieces of myself that are separate from me anything but splinters would be... incorrect. The properties of my class are entangled with my aspect to an extent that I sometimes doubt anyone but me is inflicted with. Or perhaps I am just unlucky.”

“That sounded vaguely insulting,” Bro says.

You blink, process, and make a dismissive noise in the back of your throat. “I hardly think dunking on myself automatically implies insult to your personhood, however well-deserved, unless you don’t fully recognize the independence of us as two different fuckin’ dudes.”

“I think that implying a distinct, absolute separation from each other without concrete proof in either direction is also, and I’m usin’ my fanciest of fuckin’ lingo here, complete and utter bullshit.”

“You can’t just say ‘I’m you’ whenever the mood strikes, or you want a convenient excuse for your shitty behavior,” you argue.

“Right back at you, junior.”

You scowl, bite the inside of your cheek. Bro is frustrating, but he is not always completely wrong, and that’s more annoying than anything, you think. So you push forward.

“Once upon a time I made a copy of my brain,” and it sounds too fucked up to be a fairy-tale. “I thought. Well I don’t know if I ever thought of him as an AI. He’s always been more than that. I created him as a conversational partner, but he was more like my own personal antagonist, a shitty mirror with one agenda: to annoy the shit out of me.”

“Wow, I can’t imagine what that’s like at all,” Bro drawls.

“Are you even showering in there or are you just waiting for me to leave?” you snap.

You don’t expect him to unlatch the door, nor for him to slide it back and poke his head out.

The comic appearance of his hair shampooed into a perfect singular swoop, like a white, bubble foam swan resting on top of his head, is enough to make you splutter with laughter you can’t quite stop. You definitely aren’t imagining the way his mouth ticks up, and he withdraws without a word.

“So you made a fuckin’ brain clone,” he prompts, and you’re still fighting the urge to pester Dave and tell him about this.

“Yeah,” you say, a little guilty. Maybe later. “But it was more complicated than that. He was me. Maybe still is, but no more than DS is Dave, and I can hardly say that when I have evidence to the contrary. The difference is that I made a splinter of myself that was forever trapped in a digital form, with no body and no way out. And I promised him, when we finally played the Game, I’d give him a body. I’d let him be my sprite.”

Bro is silent now, and you hear the cheap plastic creak as his feet shift in the cubicle. 

“And I wasn’t going to. I was going to renege on our deal because I didn’t trust him, I didn’t trust myself, and why would I?” You’re babbling now, leg shaking so hard it rattles your teeth. “I figured, if I can’t trust myself, if I’m afraid of what I could become, if I truly am destined to destroy and hurt and fuck everything up, why bother giving another version of myself form.”

“That’s kinda messed up,” he says.

“Yeah,” you laugh, pathetically. “I know. What makes it worse is. Okay actually that’s a long story. Basically, a troll got there first, I said fuck it, and he became entangled with the mind-soul of a fucked up troll kid and essentially began his life as the world’s most disturbing and unhelpful spirit guide ever.”

“A troll.”

“Like the alien,” you clarify. “Not the internet.”

“I can’t tell if that’s better or worse,” he marvels, and you almost smile.

“I don’t think the two are comparable, and saying as much would be xenophobic.”

“Oh yes,” he says hollowly. “Apologize to the little alien bridge trolls for me.”

“The only bridge troll here is you,” you snort.

“Please, I’m a cave troll, if anything.”

“You wish you were that elegant,” you say, and this is just gotten beyond ridiculous now. “Now stop interrupting.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“It’s highness, actually,” you correct. “Majesty would imply kingship, and I am a prince.”

“Now who’s getting off track,” he mutters, loud enough for you to hear.

“Fuck you,” you say. “Look, if you’ll shut up for five seconds, I’ll tell you that he’s back. He came back with the alpha session info dump, sans body -”

“And hopefully sans troll.”

“He’s always been a troll,” you groan, rub your eyes. “But yes. He’s alone. As far as I can tell.”

You’re almost certain Hal isn’t listening to this. You hope not. He’s been pretty insistent on his presence being made known to Bro, but has promised to wait for you to “take care of that shit” yourself.

You introduced him to Dave this morning. You had expected some hesitation, given the general part robots (drones, specifically) played in the downfall of your mutual timeline. But he had taken to Hal almost immediately, and despite Hal’s single line of “Thanks” to you following their fist conversation under your supervision, and the jealousy that ate at you (you pushed it down, fought at it because you are not a child and you know how to fucking share - albeit quite poorly), you found yourself with some measure of relief. One secret less to keep. You can’t imagine what Dave will think, let alone DS.

“So why are you telling me this,” Bro monotones, and if you did not know yourself at least the infinitesimal amount, you would think he genuinely doesn’t care. “Your little robo-buddy as big of an egomaniac as you are? Trying to get his name out there in this cruel and unforgiving world?”

“His name is Hal,” you say. “And you have no fucking idea.”

“Hal,” he says. Asks.

“Lil Hal, specifically,” you sigh. “The whole -”

“Odyssey 2001, I got it,” Bro says. Snorts. “Why am I not surprised.”

“Because we’re both you,” you say, roll your eyes for no one’s benefit. “And as misguided and fucked up as he is, he wants to meet you. He’s just like me, in more ways than either of us are comfortable. He’s curious. You can’t tell me you’re not.”

“I’ve never once had to be curious about anything,” Bro says dryly. The worst part is, you believe him.

“Is that because -” you start, stop. Think about it, rephrase before you speak. “The role you played as guardian?”

“Mm, guardians are imbued with a certain sense of doom, sure,” Bro agrees. “But it was always beyond that for me. Inside source and all.”

Your mouth goes very dry, and you feel cold, dread pouring over you from the top of your head down to your toes. “You mean...”

“You can say his name,” he says, like it doesn’t matter, like he doesn’t care.

“Are you sure?” You’ve only ever talked about this while he’s been high.

“I don’t know,” Bro tells you, and it’s the genuine tones again. The one with fragile truths.

“So he talked to you,” you say, but not his name. There is something to it that feels like a sin, like a subject you’re not meant to broach. You’re afraid, you realize.

“I can’t really explain it.” Bro sighs, and you hear his head thunk against the side of the stall. “Talking implies responses, and despite all allusions to a life of his own, that’s now how I’d ever describe it. It’s not as simple as control, nor as complicated as influence. Suggestion, maybe. My memories sometimes are a little...” He trails off, and you hate this, hate this conversation, hate how much it digs into a piece of you, how desperately it leaves you craving more, hungry for knowledge the same way you always imagined you would for power.

“Do you think of him as a part of yourself?” you ask, foolishly, and once it leaves your mouth, you desperately wish you could take it back.

You wait for Bro to answer.

He doesn’t.

You hear the squeak as he turns off the faucet, and it’s like all the air has been sucked out of the room, deadly still, so quiet you can hear the water drip off him and onto the floor.

Shit. 

 _Shit, shit, SHIT_.

You’re an idiot, you’re a fucking moron, what were you thinking?

“I didn’t mean to -”

“Get out.” It’s so soft you almost miss it.

“What -”

“Get out,” he barks, and you scramble off the toilet, pause at the door.

“I didn’t mean to -”

“ _Out_.”

So you out.

  
You stand in the hallway for a long second after the door closes, mentally kicking yourself for being so fucking stupid. Why did you  _say_  that? Why did you push him? You know how fucked up and brittle his soul is, what were you thinking, do you even understand what you could have _done_?

You take a deep breath, rake the hair back from your eyes, and slide your shades onto your nose.

Hal waiting for you, and you don’t bother to scroll back up to see how long he spent insulting you while you were talking. You’re old hat at this already, and you’re not really in the mood.

TT: Hey.  
TT: There you fucking are dude, Jesus fucking Christ.  
TT: How did it go?  
TT: Fuck.

You wipe a hand down your face. You didn’t meant to do that.

TT: Shit, sorry.  
TT: So, not so well, then?  
TT: You can’t expect me to believe you weren’t listening.  
TT: I promised, didn’t I?  
TT: Despite the fact that it very much concerned me and I had every fuckin’ right to the information, I didn’t do a single goddamn peek.  
TT: Nary an anime ear twitched in your presence, scout’s honor.  
TT: Which is exactly fucking why I’m asking you,  
TT: Politely, might I add,  
TT: How the fuck did it go, Dirk?  
TT: Like absolute dog shit. I don’t really want to talk about it right now.  
TT: Because he fucked up or because you fucked up?  
TT: Why assume either of us did anything of the sort?  
TT: It’s just kind of a general feeling I get in all things concerning you and your relationships, really.  
TT: Was that a shitty thing to say?  
TT: Yes, actually.  
TT: My apologies, then.  
TT: I am trying to be better, you know.  
TT: Yeah, I do.  
TT: Where’s bro.  
TT: Our bro or Dave’s?  
TT: Hal.  
TT: Yes, yes, I know.  
TT: He’s on the roof getting himself a new asshole torn by his production manager.   
TT: It’s funny, really. You’d think he likes it when women tell him what to do.

You laugh weakly, crack your knuckles absently as you shoulder open the bedroom door.

TT: Seriously, dude? Come on, show some respect for the dude.  
TT: Hey, you laughed. Not me.  
TT: I would never deign to mock our highly esteemed brother, even if he were getting completely fucking owned by a co-worker.  
TT: I thought you weren’t listening.  
TT: I wasn’t listening to your conversation with the other Dirk. You said nothing about conversations between you and me.  
TT: And Dave?  
TT: As per our somewhat one-sided treaty, I do not and cannot listen to anyone and everything, you know.  
TT: Your shades are really my only free range here. I have limited access to your mobile device without your permission, and none to his.  
TT: Unless he does give you permission, without understanding exactly what that entails.  
TT: Of course. It’s not exactly brolite, insinuating he is beyond comprehending the implications of giving a fully realized AI permission to access the ins and outs of his private cellular device.  
TT: Except I know how Daves can be, and I know that’s exactly what he did.  
TT: Haha. Yes.  
TT: But he did also tell me himself, before the fact.  
TT: About the asshole thing, I mean.  
TT: I made the rest of the assumption myself given the length of his call.  
TT: He’s been up there two hours.

You flop onto the bed, careful not to press your shades at an angle that you can’t read. It’s a discomfiting level of familiar, just you and Hal alone in your room, the window open, a warm breeze rolling through the blinds. You could close your eyes and almost be home, you think.

But you _are_ home. This is your home now.

And you like it here.

TT: How did it really go, anyway.  
TT: With the other Dirk.

You think, in a brief moment of hysteria, that you really fucking miss Dave.

TT: I really do just call him Bro, mostly.  
TT: Why?

Both of them, obviously. Roxy and Rose, too. You got so used to having a full house, and even with your Dave here, with Hal here, it’s not the same kind of comfort.

TT: I don’t know. I guess it’s because that’s what the Daves call him.  
TT: What he’s always been called. Same as it is with Rose’s mom. Titles given and earned, as guardians of the beta session.  
TT: I doubt there’s much else about him that particularly represents any kind of guardianship.  
TT: Maybe not at first, no.  
TT: But I think he’s trying, just a little.  
TT: Because that’s what you would do, in his situation.

You nibble at the inside your cheek, turn your head to look at the empty side of the bed.

TT: I don’t know about that.  
TT: I might esteem to do such a thing, but given our different upbringing, and the immense difference between our understanding of social cues, I gotta say,  
TT: If I were in his position, seeking redemption,  
TT: I think I’d be fucked.  
TT: It surprises me that you think that way.  
TT: Really?  
TT: Nah, not really.  
TT: I’d believe in you, though.  
TT: Yeah?  
TT: Probably. Do I really have a choice?  
TT: In general or in this specific scenario?  
TT: Don’t you think it’s depressing you even have to ask?  
TT: Yeah, maybe a little.

You push up under your shades, rub at your eyes. Christ, you really did fuck up, huh. You should. You don’t know. You don’t really want to apologize.

You don’t know if it’s because he’s you or because  _you're_ you, but you’re not actually sure if he deserves it or not.

You sigh, curse softly under your breath.

Your relationship as it pertains to Cal is so... delicate. You’ve barely even broached the topic of his name and already it’s gone to shit. How the fuck do you fix that?

TT: You said something, didn’t you.  
TT: To upset him.  
TT: Yeah.  
TT: Yes and no. It wasn’t my intent, more like an unforeseen consequence of my forwardness in a situation over which I already had too much control.  
TT: What else is new.  
TT: So you mad him mad, boo fucking hoo. He’s Dirk Motherfucking Strider, middle name not abridged.  
TT: He’ll get over it.  
TT: I know.  
TT: Well I don’t, really. I assume so, at least.  
TT: He seemed hesitant, albeit not entirely against the idea of your hypothetical interaction, by the way.  
TT: Cool.  
TT: S’all I ask for, dog.  
TT: Why do you want to talk to him, anyway?  
TT: Same reason you created me oh so long ago, I suppose.  
TT: A gateway to better know myself.  
TT: Or at least receive insight into one of the poor examples of the seemingly limitless Dirkverse.

You roll onto your back and stare up at the ceiling, think about the plastic stars Jane has stuck across her own, in shapes and patterns you never really appreciated or understood.

TT: You know, there’s probably a universe where he isn’t all fucked up.  
TT: Yeah, there was.  
TT: And you messed that one up, too.  
TT: Now hold the fucking phone just a goddamn second.  
TT: The alpha and beta timelines exist specifically within the parameters set by Sburb, and more specifically Skaia itself.  
TT: The beginning point for any of our lives was determined in the blink of an eye by randomized portals hurtling from one giant rock in the sky to another.  
TT: I hardly think things would have changed much in my own specific character arc if I hadn’t grown up completely isolated so far in the future.  
TT: In fact, I think Bro is a good example of this, in that he landed with a built-in support system and still managed to fuck everything up magnificently.  
TT: You’re implying that Dirks are destined to mess up.  
TT: Do I really even have to imply it?  
TT: Just because I made mistakes doesn’t mean I’ve failed. To think that way is depressing as fuck, even for you, Hal.  
TT: Quantum multiverse theory implies the idea that there are, essentially, limitless outcomes to any given equation.  
TT: You’re tellin’ me you think you’re the Dirk who’s got it all right?  
TT: Of course not.  
TT: Perhaps Skaia chose what it believed to be the most favorable outcome, but there is no way to disprove that choice, either, given that regardless of how it happened, we were able to produce, as a whole, a completed and successful session.  
TT: Sure there is. While the outcomes to any equation may be limitless, within the inner workings of Sburb lies the mechanism of doomed timelines.  
TT: All things doomed have their deaths written in the stars, seemingly before anything appears wrong at all.  
TT: Sometimes, in spite of such perfection.

You sigh, itch idly at your stomach. It’s the same old song and dance, but there is a part of you, deep deep down, that feels saddened by the idea, instead of relieved.

TT: You think we’re doomed?  
TT: Not necessarily.  
TT: Not even specifically these versions of us. There are endless timelines where both or neither or either of us has already died.  
TT: We’re probably even dying right now.  
TT: I would argue that you insisting on the damnation of all persons within a doomed timeline ignores the idea that there might exist a universe in which our death denotes the success of that timeline.  
TT: If that is, in fact, what you’re trying to say here.  
TT: I’m not saying that, either, you moron.  
TT: Open your fucking ears.  
TT: My ears are so wide open, I’m practically Horton over here, straining all the way down to my fucking anal glands trying to listen for some fucking whos, and all I hear is bullshit.  
TT: By arguing the potential that this timeline is doomed, you’re ignoring the fundamental parts that make up a successful Sburb session.  
TT: We finished the Game, we unlocked the ultimate prize, and when we stepped through the door, this is where we ended up.  
TT: Can you really say that’s all for naught?  
TT: No, and hardly.  
TT: But I think implying that we’re in the one timeline that got it right, or even the alpha timeline at all, is megalomania in its purest form: accidental, and too close to the situation to read it for what it is.  
TT: Sugar-coated candy nonsense.  
TT: That sounds a lot like you’re implying we’re a doomed timeline, and I’m gonna be honest with you, I don’t really like the sound of it.  
TT: You don’t have to like it.  
TT: You’re intentionally ignoring all the markers this world has as a prosperous timeline in order to argue semantics with me.  
TT: If you’d pull your human head out of your human ass, you’d understand that’s not what I’m fucking saying, bro.  
TT: I’m saying that belief in something can change the outcome of said thing.  
TT: There is a universe where this is a doomed timeline, and a universe where it is not.  
TT: And I think that while being overly optimistic towards the latter,  
TT: Assuming you are the “Dirk Who Got It All Right”, is,  
TT: (And I’m using layman’s terms here) Silly as hell,  
TT: I recognize that the former is pessimistic to the worst degree.  
TT: Neither extreme is without flaws.  
TT: We should take this world at face value and thrive in it.  
TT: Life doesn’t have to perfect to have meaning.  
TT: You should know that better than anyone.  
TT: You think there’s no such thing as one true alpha timeline.  
TT: Correct.  
TT: And I believe that you agree with me, even if you insist on being overly optimistic to the fantasy that the premise does actually exist.  
TT: I hate to say you’re right,  
TT: We both know that.  
TT: But I might want to hear you say it anyway.  
TT: Out loud? Why Hal, the scandal of it all.  
TT: Please, as if I don’t fucking deserve it.  
TT: Maybe you do.  
TT: But most likely you’re full of shit.  
TT: That too.

You laugh softly, a stream of air out your nose. “Maybe you are right, about one or two things,” you tell him, and you think he enjoys it, or perhaps is just shocked you actually said it at all, because he doesn’t say anything in reply.

TT: But if it’s cool with you, I think I’d like to go for a bit.  
TT: I want to talk to Dave before dinner.  
TT: Oh yes. Well, we could hardly risk depriving him of your company.  
TT: It’s more like you depriving me of his, Hal.  
TT: It’ll just be for an hour or so, I swear.  
TT: I just wanna talk on the phone.  
TT: It surprises me, that you’ve gotten so comfortable.  
TT: You gave me shit all day while I was offline about this.  
TT: That doesn’t mean I can’t find it touching.  
TT: No need to simper at my expense.  
TT: Now fuck off, I’m going to call him.  
TT: You can pester Roxy or some shit, you know she can hardly stand to go without talking to you all day.  
TT: Think you owe her that much, at least.  
TT: Yes, yes, of course your majesty. Anything for you, your majesty.  
TT: It’s your highness and we both know it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout out to this chapter for pushing me over 50k in my nano, I really needed it! woo!  
> Hugs and kisses to all of my commenters, you are all the goddamn loveliest people, and I hope you are all not tired yet, because the next chapter is halfway done and twice as uncomfortable! <3


	36. [S]peedball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You've been here three (3) days and you're beginning to think maybe you're not as equipped to handle this as you thought you were. Dirks are really hard.  
> Like, REALLY hard.  
> And you don't even want to hear it with the double entendres, not a-fucking-gain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy 200k? I guess?? Haha wow!! This is longer than I ever planned it to be.
> 
> CW (Genuine Content Warning) for lots (like. so many) uncomfortable jokes. Rated M for Make Him Stop  
> Also, Bro being Bro, Alpha Dave being Alpha Dave, Alpha Rose being Alpha Rose, confirmed super extremely uncomfortable jokes, exactly one (1) intermission joke and uh. Gratuitous whipping out of swords!  
> also yes i always post these without editing them that is my secret u can call me out

“Oh no,” Rose monotones, and you hear clinking glasses in the background, the sound of her heels across hardwood floor. “I cannot imagine you are having a harder time with the Dirks than you previously suspected you might. Who could have predicted this?”

You huff, roll your eyes where she can’t see. “Okay, okay, shut up though, it’s not... like that.” You hear more glass as she sets something on the table. “Are you fucking drinking?”

“It is five PM, so yes, I am.” She sounds amused, and it bothers you a little, perhaps because to an extent, you know Rose Lalonde better than you know yourself.

“Didn’t even save me a glass?” you ask, somewhat humorlessly.

She hums as she sips her wine. “Dave, I have seen you drink. I have spent time with you drunk. To paraphrase my beautiful daughter, I’m good. Lol.”

You frown, pride wounded. That’s so fucking unfair. You’ve seen  _Rose_ drunk, you’ve  _been_ drunk  _with_ Rose. If anyone should be avoiding anyone, its  _you_ avoiding _her_. Not that you would. You’re both the same exact way, to a tipping point. The problem is that she tips gently one way, whilst you slide pathetically the other. Okay, maybe she’s got a point. Still. It’s the goddamn principle of the thing, isn’t it? Who can hold their liquor better? Who’s ten times more embarrassing (but it’s you, of course it’s you, dammit Dave, you  _know_ it’s you). “That ain’t fair,” you say anyway. “I’m not that bad.”

She sighs fondly, and you hear the smile in her tone. “You are, but it’s hardly your fault. There are worse versions of drunk to be.” _Like me,_ she’s saying. You don’t tell her that. You refuse to agree, because it would only mean she’s won. Again.

“You never pick up the phone,” you whine.

You’re pacing the roof. Of course you’re pacing the roof. Where else would you pace? The living room, where literally everyone and their mother (or father in this instance, except they’re both your father and now you’re regretting thinking that in the goddamn first place gross) can hear you. You retreated up here for one specific reason, as you’ve done for the past two days.

(The reason is to whine at Rose. No one is surprised.)

So it’s been two goddamn days, only two days, but your new life has already turned on its fucking head. You spent all day yesterday fielding calls right and left, and you have never said "Sorry, I gotta take this" so many times in maybe literal fucking years. Definitely literal actually years.  
Your production manager, specifically spent hours (literal actual fucking hours Jesus Christ) lecturing (more like yelling at) you about your absence from the studio, getting you up to speed, and honestly dressing you down until you finally crack and say sorry. Turns out you’ve got a Christmas release (can’t remember whose idea  _that_ was, but you have a feeling it’s yours), and they want you back to iron out details and prepare for the events.

You told her, “Well I can’t really come out there right now?”

She said what do you mean. You said you’ve got a family emergency. She said you have family? Yeah, you said. She said well, that’s a surprise. You said yeah it’s been a busy couple days over here. She said she doesn’t know what that means. You told her you wouldn’t worry about it. You’ll be there, and it’ll all be chill. No need to fuss. She scoffed and reminded you that you have a long history of going on last minute benders.

You finally groaned, said “Yeah I know shut up,” and hung up on her before she could reply.

“You don’t really expect them to believe you’ll be ready,” Rose says. “Do you even remember the premise? Shouldn’t you be writing?”

“Dirk is going to help me,” you say proudly.

She hums, unimpressed. Rose Lalonde is not an easily impressed creature. You are intimately aware of this detail about her. You are intimately aware of many details about her, but you’re not gonna waste time thinking about it, because when you say it like that, it sounds super fucked up and weird.

You and Rose are kinda weird, you guess.

“Seriously, he’s awesome. I’m pretty sure he’s my number one fucking fan, I’ve never met a kid who could retain so much knowledge on the entirety of the SBaHJ experience.”

“You can’t keep calling it that.”

“Yes the fuck I can. It’ll catch on just you goddamn wait.”

“I’m on the edge of my seat,” she says dryly.

“Bottom line is, he’s great and the best and I love him. They’re both great, really. Just. Uh.”

“Just,” she sighs around her glass, and you wince at the echo.

“Okay so Big Dirk keeps uhhhhh.” You cough, clear your throat. “Sneaking up on me?”

She slurps. Smugly.

“And I mean nothing bad has happened to me, he doesn’t like. Do anything. Obviously, I don't think he'd do anything like that, but the thing is,  _he's_ not the problem?”

“Oh?” she says, and there is too much amusement in her voice. You do not appreciate it.

“Yeah it uh." You cough, bang your head against the AC unit. "It’s me. I’m the problem.”

She sighs, and you know that tone anywhere, the _Oh Dave_ tone. Bluh. “How do you figure that, Dave?”

“Because he keeps making me freak the fuck out. I literally fucking lose it, Rose, motherfucker is so goddamn quiet, and then I end up whipping my sword out -”

“Uh-huh.”

 _Wait_. “Wait. Wait, no, not like that.”

She laughs.

“Well, okay. Exactly like that?” You wince. “I’ve got him a couple times already, actually.”

Her laughter cuts off abruptly, and that just fuels your anxiety, makes you pace faster across the roof. “Excuse me? What do you mean ‘ _got him_ ’, Dave?”

“Like. With my sword?”

Listen, it’s not entirely your fault.

Okay, it kind of is.

It is most definitely is at least  _partially_ your fault.

The first time you know it was a fluke, all hyped up on being alive again, manic, uncontrollable energy that you still haven’t completely recovered from. A wild incident, awkward and unrecognized territory.

The car was just. Mortifying. You’re pretty sure if he hadn’t had a hand on the door, you’d have sliced a hole in the fucking roof. Instead you just kinda. Fell out sideways, knicked him on the way down.

It should have stopped there.

But then it didn’t.

 The first couple’a times you whipped out your sword (Jesus Christ phrasing fucking phrasing even if it’s technically accurate please god stop you have to stop) at Bro were recognizable accidents, caused by your own obliviousness and disregard for your surroundings.

The incidents following have been more like...

Well. You don’t know.

You can’t tell if he’s doing it on purpose to fuck with you, or if he’s just a quiet dude with bad timing. You’d like to think the latter, but the more you interact with the guy... Look, you’re not here to judge Dirks. Not any specific Dirks. Not even if they appear around corners and dark hallways at random intervals, completely silent and always staring, blank-faced, unblinking with a weapon between the eyes (all metaphorical, of course, because shades, duh).

You haven’t hit him yet, not since those first two times. You’re better than that, you’re a steady hand and a good fuckin’ eye (you had to be didn’t you, you didn’t have a choice then, you never really did), but the dude, fast as he is, never moves out of the fucking way.

You’re beginning to think he’s playing chicken with you. You are almost certain that is what’s going on here.

You just can’t figure out why.

Rose is quiet for a long minute. “Huh,” she says eventually.

“That’s it? Huh?”

“I just. Wasn’t expecting that. I suppose I should have.”

You sigh, drag a hand back through your hair. “What the dick am I supposed to do in this situation?”

“Stop carrying a sword around?”

“What no I. Need it.”

“Yes, of course, you’re so right. My mistake.” You can  _hear_  her rolling her eyes at you. Rose is an expert eye roller. It’s a tragedy they haven’t rolled out of her head and out the door. Actually that’d be kinda gross. Maybe it’s a miracle. “Have you tried talking to him?”

You sniff, scratch your nose. The answer is more complicated than a simple yes or no. You’ve tried. Several times. He’s just. Well. “Uh,” you say. “He doesn’t. He doesn’t really  _do_ talking. At least not to me.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm?”

“Yes. Hmm.”

“You know, I’m startin’ to see the similarities here,” you sigh. “Between you and him.”

“Mean-spirited,” she purrs, “but potentially not entirely untrue. Your accent has made its valiant return, I see.”

“What? Oh, yeah.” You hadn’t even noticed. You were always careful to keep your voice neutral in interviews and on set, but once that stopped mattering, in your later years, you let it drop again. There was no one left to impress. “I didn’t even realize.”

“It suits you, as it always has. I daresay I missed it.”

Your neck burns, and you huff. “Keep your panties on there, Lalonde.”

“Bold of you to assume I’m wearing any,” and she’s the one drinking, but it makes you choke.

“Did  _not_ need to know that, Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Yes, well you hardly gave me a choice.” She laughs again.

You manage a smile. “Yeah. How are you and uhhhh. Adult Roxy?”

“Our mother?”

A noise makes its way out of you that makes you want to shrivel up and die. “You can’t call her that.”

“Everyone else does.”

“You’re older than her.”

“Oh that doesn’t matter,” she laughs, and you imagine you hear another voice alongside her, snickering. “It’s all in good fun.”

You sigh, pinch the bridge of your nose. Goddamn Lalondes. “Does she know anything about Big Dirk?”

“Let me ask. She’s nodding. Enthusiastically. Do you want to speak with her?”

You stutter to a stop. Uh. “Uh.”

“Uh?”

“I. I dunno.” It’s not that you don’t want to. Well you kind of don’t. You kind of do. It’s just. You’ve kinda got a full plate right now.

“You don’t know?”

“Well. I don’t know anything about her,” you offer weakly.

“Of course not,” she says, sounding utterly amused. She's always thrived in your discomfort, Rose. “That’s the point.”

“I just don’t know if I can deal with another drunk broad right now, that’s all. No offense I guess.”

She snorts softly. “Roxy doesn’t drink, Dave.”

“What?”

“It’s not really any of your business,” she sighs, and you hear another clink, a telltale glug. “Listen, it’s alright, Dave. There will be time. You and I will be reuniting soon, regardless.”

You are used to Rose saying cryptic shit, to the point of uselessness. It ranges from mildly interesting to pantshittingly terrifying, and this lands somewhere in the middle. “What makes you say that?”

“The Daves are due to return home soon. I thought I might tag along. I never did get to see your Houston apartment, did I?”

“I dunno,” you say again.

“Why Dave,” she says, and you can tell she’s just delighting in this game she plays with you, “do you not wish to see _me_ , your favorite dame?”

“Rose, you know you’re my dame,” you groan, cover your face. You hate this. You hate all of this. “You’re the Aykroyd to my Belushi, the Jeff to my Bro, the bitch to my bigger much more annoying bitch, and you’re like the one fucking human on this bitch of an earth who could ever stand me.”

“And only just,” she says, fondly.

“Haha,” you say, smile. “Yeah. It’s just. Uh. There’s not really. Room? Here?”

“Sounds like you have something to talk about with the Large Dirk.”

“Big Dirk.”

“Is he not large?”

“How would I know that?”

“ _Wow_.”

You die inside, just a little. A lot. You die a lot. “Okay shit no, that was a terrible joke.”

“Yes,” she says, and you hear her just fucking. Relishing in your agony. “I don’t doubt it.”

“Fuck you, Rose, you suck,” you whine, drop your head back. How do you always fall into these traps?

“On this subject I do believe I am not the only one.”

You fight a grin. “That was surprisingly funny, for you.”

“Thank you, I’ve spent years training over the best.”

“Isn’t it supposed to be under?”

“Oh Strider, you could only dream.” Her heels clack clack clack across the floor. “I cannot believe we are still playing these ridiculous games, you and I.”

“It’s cuz I’m your best friend and you love me.”

“Yes,” she sighs, as if to imply burden, “I do believe I do.”

“Kay well I’m gonna go. Talk, I guess. To the dude who doesn’t fucking speak. Rose is it crazy if I think he hates me?”

“Yes,” she says without hesitation.

“Wow.”

“Has he met you properly?”

“Uh, yeah duh.”

“Then perhaps no, not so crazy after all.”

“Double fucking wow.”

“Have you given him reason to dislike you?”

“Well -”

“Beyond being your usual, utterly charming self?”

“No?” you say, ignoring her jab. “I dunno. It’s just weird. I want him to like me. I don’t know why.”

“Well. Perhaps you should just give it the old college try.”

You pretend to stomp where no one can see you. You know. For the drama. “Can’t you like, use your powers and see if he’ll ever like me?”

“That would be cheating,” Rose says. “And no. Not to say I’ve tried, but my gaze has become somewhat limited. We did just resurrect, though I admit I’m a bit out of practice. Anything from you?”

“No,” you grunt. “And there never will be not ever a-fucking-gain.”

“Dave,” she says, kindly.

“No. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Alright, alright. I’ll let you go. Despite the fact that you are the one who called me.”

“A’ight sis have a good one.”

“Sis? Wow, you are reverting.”

“Please don’t make it weird,” you beg.

“Oh Dave,” she says, and you hear her shark-like grin, “it’s always been weird.”

She hangs up on you.

 Wow. Just. Wow.

You stare at your phone glumly, hope that whatever fucked up powers she  _does_  still have let her see how much this is upsetting you. You are so upset right now, and it is totally all her fault.

You are so focused on being upset that you almost jump when it lights up and red text flashes across the screen, scramble to answer. It’s the first time you’ve messaged anyone since changing your chumhandle (you’re not miffed, really, because you know, the kid probably deserves the handle as much as any Dave, and you’re an adult, so who fuckin’ cares? Definitely not you).

TT: It amuses me that you actually called her after so vehemently denying that it would help in any way  
TG: yeah  
TG: thats just how rose and me are though  
TG: she calls i answer  
TG: or i call and she eventually answers after the fifth voicemail in a row  
TG: things between us have just always been a little bit  
TG: you know  
TT: Weird?  
TG: yeah  
TG: hey hal  
TG: guess i shouldve lead with that now i look hells of rude out here  
TG: being deads no excuse not to remember my fuckin manners  
TT: It might surprise you to know that it makes absolutely no difference to me.  
TT: Being that I am without corporeal form and therefore and not NEVER around at any given moment.  
TG: so you were already here huh  
TT: Precisely.  
TG: i think you coulda slipped in a brocisely right there if you had tried hard enough  
TT: Oh snap, outwitted again.  
TG: i think youre just going easy on me to make a good impression  
TG: all appealing to the idea that i am capable of making bro puns the likes of which this world has never seen  
TG: which i totally will one day  
TG:  they just dont know it yet  
TT: Is it working?  
TT: The flattery.  
TG: ill let you be the judge of that  
TG: and anyway you dont need a body to get said hello to thats not how the world works  
TT: I assure you, bro, it genuinely doesn’t bother me. Not a real boy, remember? No feefees here for you to hurt.  
TG: cmon dont be like that youve got hella feefees and stuff  
TG: you dont gotta get all down on yourself man youre awesome  
TG: you are real youre my kid  
TG: like one outta three now right  
TT: I would hardly categorize “Bro” Strider as a child, or even advise interacting with him the way you do.  
TG: okay first of all i totally lived to be like  
TG: old enough to at least be his older brother or some shit so shut up  
TG: second of all i dont really think hes that bad he just  
TG: keeps fucking scaring me  
TT: He does scare you, then?  
TG: well no  
TG: not like how i think everyone keeps expecting you know  
TG: hes not like a ghost or a monster or like whatever you know  
TG: all lurking in the halls waiting to rip my heart from my chest and eat it maybe kick my corpse around the living room a little  
TT: He does lurk in the halls, though, doesn’t he?  
TG: god i would pay him to stop honestly i dont know if my old heart can take it  
TT: It wouldn’t have to, if he ripped it from your chest.  
TG: fuck aint that the truth  
TG: see look not everything has a downside  
TG: look i worry about the dude okay hes a dirk too i can tell something feels off  
TG: mostly i mean he wont stop the predator shit and at this point it definitely feels like a joke im not getting?  
TT: I’m inclined to believe this behavior is ingrained in his nature, perhaps at an atomic level.  
TT: Dirk is quite the same, given the chance. And as for me.  
TT: I suppose we will never know, so you needn’t worry.  
TG: dude hal come on  
TG: listen if it bugs you that much i can talk to old lady english about having her build you a body  
TT: I never implied it bugged me at all.  
TG: youre kind of obvious  
TG: no offense  
TT: Some taken.  
TG: doesnt dirk build robots though i feel like hes more than capable  
TT: I think you’ll find he’s rather less likely to comply with the request than you think, but the sentiment is appreciated.  
TG: okay not saying i dont love both of you but i remember our first convo so  
TG: im not touching that with a ten foot pole lol

You smile to yourself, crossing the roof to head back downstairs.

It was kind of a weird surprise to wake up to, on your second day, Dirk nervously wringing his hands while he told you about Hal. You didn’t know what to say, really. Still don’t. It’s...

Okay it’s a little fucking weird.

Look, you like the kid, okay you do, but. How the fuck do you properly parent someone who does not, in fact, have a room you can send him to? Or a body to send there in the first place?

Not to mention that they’re both entirely precocious, and you’re still fighting against that little piece of you inside that asks if you’ve really got any right at all, callin’ them your kids in the first place.

So, cool. It’s cool. You’ve got your human kid, your robot kid, and your...

Uh.

Well honestly Hal is right. You can hardly call Bro a kid, especially not YOUR kid. Especially not your anything.

You guess he  _is_ kind of your....

You drag a hand down your face.

Listen, Dave, you can’t call him your dad. It’s weird.

It’s weird and you can’t do that.

You also don’t really want to.

TT: But he doesn’t scare you.  
TT: The other Dirk.  
TG: i mean i think hes weird in the way that i think puppets and shit as a hobby and entrepreneurial business is weird yeah but  
TG: nah not especially  
TG: why  
TG: does he scare you?  
TT: I.

Hal takes a minute to reply. You wonder if you upset him, or insulted him in some capacity. It’s not like he’s beyond thought or feelings, despite the games he likes to play. You have a pretty good feeling he’s full of shit on several matters, including those ones.

TT: I’m not sure.  
TT: Technically I am no longer Dirk, or more accurately at this point, A Dirk, in the same way that I cannot be anything else.  
TT: We may infer from that alone that I have quite a bit of practice dealing with myself. Let’s not be redundant about it.  
TT: But he’s different.  
TT: I’m curious, yes. Perhaps hesitant to engage, due to the grey area surrounding him.  
TT: As it has only been two days, I haven’t had much chance to observe the relationship between him and Dirk, and therefore no way to accurately predict how our interaction would go.  
TT: It could be fine, maybe even a little boring.  
TT: Or it could be an absolute shit show.  
TG: i dont think theres anything wrong with that man like  
TG: not knowing if youre ready and stuff  
TG: im gonna be meeting two brand new daves here soon do you think i know what the fuck im gonna do  
TG: of course the fuck not i cant even remember being their age goddamn all awkward and shit  
TG: oh god was i still short then how tall was i even five feet tall god help me  
TT: I don’t think it is exactly the same, but I appreciate the sentiment, and am amused by your newfound fears.  
TG: uh  
TG: i dont really know what to say to that  
TG: youre welcome though lil dude  
TG: shit no dirk doesnt like it when i call him that sorry  
TT: No I don’t mind.  
TG: really  
TT: Of course not. The moniker carries a tradition of affectionate badinage between two brothers.  
TT: I like it.  
TG: haha cool  
TG: thanks hal  
TT: You’re welcome, bro.

Bro is sitting on the futon when you open the door (you woke up yesterday to find it fixed, you don’t really have to guess who), and you give pause in the entryway.

You’re not scared of him. He’s even sitting perfectly fucking still. It’s just.

Ugh.

It’s just awkward.

You feel like you’ve made it super awkward.

“Hey.” You offer him a curt nod, the coolest of cool dude gestures, because you are just that slick, absolutely next level. Hell yeah. You eye the bowl of cereal in his hands. You haven’t actually seen much in the way of food since you got here - the fridge was empty save for a couple lukewarm cans of Crush, and broken, besides - so you’re not actually sure where he even got that. Especially not the fucking milk.

“Sup.” He doesn’t look at you, scrolls his phone rapidly. The TV is on some shitty Hallmark channel, which you somehow doubt he’s even watching, considering it’s dead fucking silent in the apartment.

You stand there, kind of flounder. You want to talk to this guy, you do. Like. You  _really_ do. He’s wearing a purple hat, and you consider asking where he gets them, how does he have  _this_ many hats, before deciding no, shit, that’s lame, and then you’re just.

Standing there.

In the living room.

Staring at him while he doesn’t look at you while the muted television sits in the background, making it even more goddamn tense.

“Where’s Dirk?” you try, kicking off your shoes and coming to sit next to him.

You do see how he shifts away from you, cereal bowl rested precariously on his knee, and you feel kind of.

Well not sad.

Kind of disappointed? Maybe?

It’s one of the main problems here. Has been for the past two days. Dude won’t fucking look at you, unless he’s hiding in the a dark hallway, waiting to make you piss your pants. The lack of acknowledgment is depressing, and you can’t tell if it’s because you’re a needy bitch or because he’s an aloof prick.

Probably a bit of both, you think.

You wonder absently if you did something wrong, watch the girl on TV cry in the rain in her too-thin shirt and still perfect makeup. “Do you think they test the shirts beforehand?” you ask.

“What.”

Okay, now that’s progress.

You glance at him. He’s still focused on his phone, but at least you have his attention.

“Like, every heroine in these shitty fucking movies. They’ve all got paper shirts and perky nips. Sup with that?”

When Bro does look at you, there is something genuinely withering about his stare. The lack of expression, the way he still manages to exude judgment on every level. Then he turns his head, stares at the screen, and after a beat, he says, “Is this the fucking Hallmark channel?”

“Haha, yeah. I’m not here to judge, man, but these things don’t usually have the best endings.”

Here’s the thing about this guy: you don’t actually think he hates you. Maybe. Probably. Sure, he’s not talkative, sure he won’t look at you. Maybe he spooks you sometimes, maybe he doesn’t have much to say, at least not to you, but.

You don’t know.

“Is this about the futon last night?” you blurt, like an insecure fool.

Bro’s eyebrows skyrocket, and his head turns every slowly to look at you again, speechless. Maybe not speechless. Maybe just. Taken aback by your stupidity.

Oh god you wish Rose was here. Rose would tell you you’re being an insecure fool, and save you from yourself.

Instead, you push forward.

“Hey, man, I really didn’t mean to conk out like that, okay? I was just trying to catch up on the news, see what the hell is what in this fucked up little harlequin earth thing we got goin’ here. Did you know Obama is still president in this timeline? How fucking dope is that?” You really didn’t mean to pass out on his futon. The futon. No, wait,  _his_ futon. Far as you can tell this is definitely his bed, and you definitely fell the fuck asleep clutching his pillow and drooling all over it.

You didn’t mean to, though, earnestly. Dirk had finally passed out in his own bed, thank fucking god, and you were honestly relieved to see it, hadn’t had the heart to wake him. What kind of monster would do that? How could you possibly complain? Kids need their own rooms. It’s pretty much a law or some shit.

“It’s fine,” Bro sighs, shoves his phone into his pocket and stands in one fluid motion. You think about waking up at three AM, seeing him sit over you on the coffee table, no shades and eyes that seemed to glow in the dark (it’s a bit dramatic, really, and you were half-asleep at the time; you’re pretty sure if he hadn’t kicked you in the knee you’d have lopped off his head). The dude moves with purpose, and you can’t tell if you’re jealous or terrified.

Maybe both.

Maybe something else.

“So I was thinking,” you say, because now is definitely the best fucking time for this. No doubt in your mind. This is absolutely not a fool’s errand. “Maybe we could bunk together? Tonight? So Dirk can have his own bed? Not that little dude’s room isn’t kickass, but at this point I think it’s kind of shitty for me to be sleeping in there. Kind of like I’m a freeloader? I do have money, y’know, I could at least buy us a fuckin’ air mattress from Walmart or some shit.”

“Uh-huh,” he says, which isn’t. Really an answer? Instead, he steps over you, walks his bowl to the kitchen, and flashsteps out of the room so fast you almost can’t follow his aftertrail.

Well. Fuck.

So much for that.

You sit in the quiet of the room for a minute, unsure what to do now. One of the soft, funny little puppets that Dirk and Bro seem so fond of lies mere inches from your foot, so you nudge at it, more nervous than you probably should be.

Nothing happens. You press on its nose.

It squeaks, you scream, and the resulting kick sends it flying out the open window.

Okay, that.

Sure did happen, huh?

Sure would be embarrassing as fuck if anyone caught you.

But they didn’t so you’re Gucci, and everything can continue as normal.

 _Fuck_.

You better go find Dirk.

 

  
Dirk has been respectful of your privacy to almost a perfect T, like he read a handbook for “How to Act Around Adults” overnight and decided that you needed the space.

Quite frankly, you kinda wish he hadn’t.

Not that you think he actually did that, because that would be insane, and probably also isn’t a real book to start with.

The point is, you kinda feel like he spent all of yesterday and today hiding from you. Not that you didn’t need to take a call or two, you have a job (thank god and the universe for that one, Jesus fucking Christ), but you really don’t want him to feel like he needs to sequester himself to his bedroom.

You rap lightly on the door before popping your head in. “Hey dude, can I ask you something?”

Dirk sits in the middle of the floor surrounded on all sides by scraps of metal and detritus, and you’re impressed that he managed to make a mess so quickly, considering it wasn’t there last night when you checked on him.

Shades in place, you can’t quite read the expression on his face, stoicism all the way down. He opens his mouth. Closes it. “Yes,” he finally says, and he puts the arm he’s holding - you think it’s an arm? - delicately in his lap to give you his full attention. You like that about him. Kid is earnest, focused, and seems pretty eager to humor you.

At least so far.

You lean against the door jam, hand absently picking at the paint while you think of a way to ask that doesn’t sound... insane. Needy. Desperate, even. “So like, what the fuck is up with that guy?”

Oh shit.

Shit goddammit.

Dirk arches an eyebrow up over the edge of his shades and in that exact moment, you see Rose Lalonde. “Did he say something to you?”

“No,” you say quickly. Wow, that didn’t sound desperate or dumb at fucking _all_. “Nah, nothing like that just he uh.” You shrug. “I feel like he runs away? Every time I try talking to him?”

 He sighs softly, drops his head back down to his work. You watch his hand run along the wrist there, turn it so you can hear the joint creak in a way that’s a little more than unnerving. “It’s kind of a long story.”

“I’ve got time,” you murmur, and the look he gives you is amused long suffering. There is a good chance, you think, that he got the joke.

“I don’t really know where to start with any of that,” he admits. Winces. “Bro is. Well, aside from being infuriating to the point of unreasonable, he’s just... different.”

“That’s a word,” you say, then, “Sorry,” when you realize they’re the same person kinda and that was really fucking rude.

He snorts softly but there’s no vitriol in it. “Bro I assure you it will take more than that to viscerally upset me.”

“Yeah,” you say, clear your throat. You give him a weak smile. It feels weird, still. Like. Fuck you, he’s real. Dirk is real. “I’m still sorry, though. You’re a kid and like. Kind of the same person? To a point, anyway. Ghostways or whatever.”

“Ectobiologically,” he corrects.

“Ectobibliographically,” you sigh. That earns a little crack in his mask.

“Ectobiologically,” he says again, “we are the same, yes. But one could argue we are only the same person insomuch as you, Dave, and DS are the same.” His smile widens, just a smidge. Enough for you to get a flash of teeth. “And I very much imagine the height discrepancy would bother them.”

Right. The other Daves. You’re trying not to think about that too much. It definitely only gives you a tiny headache, practically unnoticeable, coiled up like stress at the base of your skull. You’re not really ready to address it as an issue. “Are we, uh. Are we similar?”

He tips his head to the side, and the smile that grows there is too much of Rose for you to really know what to do with. “Do you really want me to answer that question.”

He’s snarky. You like that. “I’ll take that as a maybe,” you say dryly.

“I love them both,” he says, and then his ears turn pink and he drops his gaze again. “So I think that counts. For something. At least on the subject of character.”

That is.

That’s pretty much just the sweetest shit that anyone’s ever fucking said to you.

Holy fuck you have such a good kid.

“But Bro is different,” you sigh. Why can’t everything be clear cut? Simple? Multiple Dirks seemed cool, at first. Now you’re wondering if you’ve miscalculated.

Just kidding, as if you’d ever give the fuck up. You didn’t claw your way to the top of the Hollywood B list in under five years to get rejected by a thirty-three year old dickhead.

(He wouldn’t be the first one, you guess, but that’s. Different. And not the fucking point, Jesus _Christ_ , Dave.)

“Bro is different,” Dirk agrees. he sighs, turns the arm over and begins fiddling with the wrist again, grabs something that looks too much like an actual soldering - oh it is, isn’t it? Holy fuck. “Your curiosity is well within reason. I imagine were he anyone else, he might be concerned about you in the same capacity.”

Okay. _Okay_??? “What does that mean? Why would he be concerned?”

Dirk finishes what he’s doing before he pauses, takes a moment to stare at you. And, okay, listen, you love the kid (is that unfair? It’s only been two days maybe you’re being crazy and shit but c’mon, throw yourself a bone here) but he gets this look on his face you don’t even think he knows about. Like he’s older than you, like he knows more than he lets on. More than you. Maybe he does. “He raised Dave,” he tells you. “From a baby until the Game, when he...”

“Died,” you nod. “I know about that part.”

Dirk presses his lips together, brows bunching for one beat, then two. He jerks his head in a nod. “I reckon all the guardians were destined to die, eventually. Most of our own did so long before we ever reached the entry stage. We were not as lucky.” He pauses, drums a hand on his knee absently. He doesn’t look thoughtful. Just anxious. “I’m getting off track. Bro and I share some similarities, yes, but his thoughts are his own. Whatever he’s hiding in that fucked up brain I’m no more privy to than you or anyone. Honestly he’s kind of an asshole,” he admits, and you laugh lightly.

“I kind of had an inkling.” You roll your head so your neck cracks. Fuck yes. “Are  _you_ an asshole?”

Surprisingly, this makes him smile. “Yes, unfortunately. I’m afraid it’s chronic, and runs in the family. At least on my side.” He looks so much like Rose that it really throws you. “Yeah,” you say. “I’m starting to get that.” You eye the arm, pale grey metal and boxy hand, think about what you told Hal. “What are you making?”

“Replacement parts for my rap bot, Squarewave,” Dirk sighs. He’s delicate with the bits and pieces, cradles them with care, like one might a newborn puppy or some shit. “He and Sawtooth were missing upon entry here. I reckon in this timeline I never built them. Or maybe I did and they’re out there fucking up strangers, I don’t fucking know, but I - Just in case, I thought I might have spare bodies ready. Or at least the parts most likely to be damaged.”

It’s clear he really cares about these things, and to say you’re impressed would just. Really undersell how you feel here. He’s a smart little fucker. You’re blown away. It’s amazing, really, that he can do any of the shit he does. He grew up so goddamn alone.

“I don’t know if they’ll be the same,” he admits softly, and you think he looks vulnerable, head bowed, brow wrinkled. Like a little kid, just for a second.

Fuck, you’ve missed so much, haven’t you?

You wonder if it would be too wild to ask for a hug. Decide no, definitely not the right time for a hug.

Well maybe it is.

 _Would_  be, for someone else.

But fuck, he’s a sixteen-year old boy. He’s almost as tall as you, he’s probably gonna start growing facial hair and shit soon. Can’t just go around being all affectionate and on top of that, Rose is right; you hardly know him.

And that’s what really hurts, all the way down. How little you really understand a kid you were destined to take care of (or not take care of, because fate is cruel, has always been cruel, and your hands burn where they remember holding the weapon that killed you).

Dirk sits maybe five feet away, but you may as well be oceans apart. You want to get to know him. You want to understand. You want him to know somebody cares.

“I’m sure they’re around,” you offer. Gentle, light. “Took the Game what, six months to spit me out? I’m sure your lil robot buddies ain’t too far behind.”

Dirk sighs, deep and heavy, but when he looks at you, there’s a fractured smile on his face. “Thanks, bro. For -” He clears his throat, and you get the idea he’s not a big fan of eye contact, at least not with you. “Anyway. Thank you.”

“Sure,” you say, feel awkward, stilted. You shift from foot to foot, crack the knuckles on your left hand one by one. You can’t just. Stand here all day. Well you could. You shouldn’t. You SHOULD work. You should do... something? You probably need to make more calls.

“Do you want to,” Dirk starts, his voice catching in this throat. “Do you want to stay? I can hardly say ‘help’, but maybe I could... show you? How it works? Dave sometimes sits with me and we -” You watch him turn red slowly, and you struggle not to laugh. It’s kind of sweet, maybe a little pathetic.

You absolutely love it.

“Yeah, man,” you say, and you’re getting too old for this shit, or you were too old for this shit, push off the door and ease yourself onto the floor with the care of any sixty-year old man. “Fuck yeah. Teach me your ways, oh master of the mechanical arts.”

“Hardly,” he scoffs, but when he smiles this time, you can see over the edge of his shades, and his eyes shine with delight that’s hard to find anywhere else.

You don’t see Bro for the rest of the day, and when you eventually migrate back to the roof, after Dirk retires back to his room (you were watching movies, but when he shyly admitted he calls Dave - whichever one, you don’t fucking know - every night before bed, and isn’t that fucking precious, you could hardly say no) you breathe in cool air and finally let your shoulders sag.

It’s not that you can’t juggle the Dirks. It’s fine, honestly, and they’ve both got a lot of energy, and maybe trying to argue authorial intent while watching the movie is a pain but. Well. You’ll get used to it.

You hope.

Fuck, but you need a smoke.

The delighted relief it gives you, fishing one free from your pants - back left pocket, always, no time for sylladexing that shit, fuck that - is incomparable. It’s a shitty habit, yes, yes definitely absolutely, but fuck you if you could handle the day to day stress without it.

“You know smoking that shit while breathing city smog’s bad as fuck for your health, right?”

This time when you dislodge your sword, Bro has a hand around your wrist in a heartbeat, and you go to snag his with your other on automatic, drop your smoke into the gravel, still manage to tip your blade up under his chin.

Because he loves to just. Utterly fuck with you, he wraps his free hand around your sword and holds it there. Well. You guess the leather gloves have some purpose, at least. Aside from making him look like the world’s biggest tool (and you’re absolutely not jealous, not jealous at all of how he manages to be more ridiculous in every way than you are, the motherfucking _show-off_ ).

“Dude,” you shriek through your teeth, more than a little hysterical. Unless he moves, you’re both stuck like this. He doesn’t seem to care. “What the _fuck_.”

“You’re fast enough to stop yourself,” he observes, like that’s what really fucking matters here. “I’m impressed.”

Your mouth drops open of its own accord. What the _fuck_? “You cannot Naruto _to test_ _my abilities_ me right now, I forbid it.”

He quirks a brow.

You scowl. “You cannot tell me you’ve never watched Naruto.”

“I’ve been busy raising a kid,” he snorts, seems amused. It’s the happiest you’ve seen him, standing on the roof with a sword to his throat. “But no shit, Sherlock.”

You try to peel his hand off yours. It doesn’t budge. “That meme’s a bit outdated, don’t you think?”

“People have been saying it since before either of us were born,” he says, and when he guides your sword away from his face, you let him. His fingertips are callused across the back of your knuckles. “I reckon the phrase has enough literal history that being dated doesn’t carry the same weight as today’s fast moving meme market.”

You think of what to say, but really you’re just watching the tiny little red spot where your sword dug in, just over his Adam’s apple. It bobs when he swallows, but doesn’t bleed.

“You can stop staring at any time,” he tells you.

“Uh,” you say.

“Uh-huh,” he monotones, releases you so quickly you almost lose your footing, tip forward.

Then you’re just standing there, two dudes on a roof, sirens wailing in the distance, wind ruffling your hair and the edge of your shirt.

You let out a shuddering breath and shake your hands to dislodge some tension, banish your sword back to your ‘dex. Rose is right. You shouldn’t carry it around like this.

Bro breathes out his nose in a short stutter. He steps forward suddenly enough that you step back, but he bends at the waist, nabs your cigarette where it’s fallen, and jams it in his mouth before wandering away, off towards the rooftop’s edge.

You swallow, breathe out again. “That’s really fucking gross,” you tell him when you recover.

“Do I look like I give a shit,” he says on a drag, and you don’t really know what to say to that, so you cave, drag your heels over to the verge where he’s standing.

You do just watch him for a hot minute, though you know now he doesn’t like it. He's got an interesting face, and you're impressed by the way he moves. He’s like a crooked version of Dirk, you think, somewhat insanely. Broken nose, slanted brows, bad posture, worse attitude. You have no idea what to make of this man. No idea where to start.

“Ain’t your parents ever teach you staring’s rude?” he drawls, doesn’t look at you.

“I didn’t really have parents,” you say, shrug.

He tips his head down so you can see his eyes under the brim of his hat, over the edge of his shades. “Yeah, I know.”

“Oh.” And you remember, right then, that you are more similar than you know. Variations on a theme, the remixed version of each other. Same first day on Earth, probably same fucked up living situation. “That’s kind of fucked up, don’t you think?” you ask, softly.

He sighs, a puff of smoke, and drops to sit, all loose wild limbs and not a lick of fear to be found. “You can sit, David, or you can leave.”

“Fuck you, _‘David’_ ,” you sneer, but concede, grab your smokes and wiggle your lighter free. “It’s Dave and we both fucking know it. How would YOU like it if I called you - what’s the long form for Dirk, anyway? Is there even one?”

He watches you ease yourself down with a touch of incredulity, expressed solely with his eyebrows. It’s kind of hilarious. “It’s Dietrich, actually,” he says. “But that doesn’t matter.”

"Dietrich," you drawl, snicker. "Fuck me, like Dirk wasn't bad enough."

"But you named him," he says. Certainty, no ounce of a question.

You light your cigarette, take a drag. It feels like ages ago, when you set up the apartment, when you stocked it to the brim with orange juice and enough toilet paper to last an apocalypse and then some. "I guess I did. I don't really remember making the decision. It feels like that's just -"

"How it was meant to be," he says, and you nod. He nods back, head bobbing to a rhythm you can't hear. "I reckon you didn't really have a choice, in the long run. I was already me before the scratch, and he wasn't. Dirk, until after it."

"But the sessions ran concurrent," you say. There are things you know to be inherent truths. They've never sat well with you.

"And yet by causing the scratch, we existed first, and in doing so, influenced your timeline." Bro holds his cigarette with his pointer finger curled over it, just like you, and you have a panicked moment where you wonder if you grew up with the same friends, if you entire lives are just mirrors of each other. "He's Dirk because I was first, and your name is Dave because that's what I named him. Simple as that."

"That's kind of a shitty outlook on things, don't you think?" He just shrugs. "How old were you anyway, when the kid me dropped on you?"

That gets you a smile, but it's pinched, unfriendly. "He destroyed my favorite record shop, y'know. With his ass. And a horse."

"Oh fuck me, Maplehoof," you blurt. Fuck you, _Maplehoof_. She's probably still in L.A., waiting for you to come one. Oh God. It's been years.

"He crushed her on impact," he adds, you think to make it worse.

"Not helping," you groan. "I'll text my assistant. Someone will feed her."

"Shouldn't she have died by now? If she were a normal horse?" he asks, and you huff, reach out to tentatively nudge him with your knuckles. To your surprise, he lets you.

"Do you ever stop saying fucked up shit? Ever? Can you take a break from that for five seconds? My horse is fucking awesome, I bet you'll love her."

He muffles a little chuckle around your old cigarette. "We'll see."

You don't know what that means, and you gnaw at the inside of your lip. "Rose said Dirk was going to come down with a puppet. Did you -"

"Yes," he says sharply. "And he's gone now. They both are. They had to be. It doesn't matter."

"But -"

"It doesn't matter," he repeats. "Things played out the way they were meant to. They won. We're here. The end."

It grates at you, in a way things don't usually, like his height, like his indifference and lack of fear. "Are you seriously telling me it doesn't bother you? Being the universe's plaything?"

He looks you and for a moment you freeze, wonder if you've crossed a line. Then he sighs, flicks the ash off the end. What he says is, "I didn't have a choice," and you feel it so deeply you don't know what to say.

So you don't say anything at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter also sees the drop of Dave and Rose's use of color to fit the other guardians c; we'll see how that plays out  
> Cries oh boy I bet we all can't wait for that next chapter, huh? Made some of you wait long enough, I think c; and it will be okay!  
> PS SUPER MEGA THANK YOU TO EVERYONE FOR. ALL THESE MONTHS TOGETHER AND ALL YOUR COMMENTS, YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS, YOUR KUDOS!!! It means SO much! THANK YOU!
> 
> P.S. in celebration of an absolutely astronomical amount of words, [here is a link to my disaster playlist for this fic](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/79OAQSePEzuj6boeHYmpFs) which i both use to write and to cry to! for fun!  
> [and another link for a playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1UEfndgg0NFr34YJGbMQGl) by [peonies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peonies) that was made for r&g which i love even more than my own


	37. pulling teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave has a vague conversation with Davesprite that we'll never see to completion. Later he as a run-in with perhaps the most cryptic human being that isn't his brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! It's been a week! Sorry to say this one got away from me, and wedged itself between a chapter I was already writing lol help  
> cw for minor discussion of past abuse and just like. story stuff! the usual. minor warning for babes in heels.

The thing about Dave is, you don’t mind spending time with him all that much.

Even if he is sort of you, and you’re sort of him, and he’s made it clear he thinks your waffling over stupid shit is extremely annoying and entirely useless, maybe-definitely a little bit pathetic.

He’s not nearly as helpful now that he’s not a sprite.

Not that you’d ever tell him that.

It wouldn’t help the weird tension between you, and it also makes you sound like a giant dick.

Which, to be fair, you kind of are.

(At least sometimes.)

“I think you should tell him,” he says thoughtfully, after you finally stop to breathe.

Sprawled out on his floor, you lift your head so he can see you frown. That is the absolute worst fucking idea you have ever heard in your entire life. “It isn’t really something we talk about.”

“Yeah, because you’re you,” he snorts, shoves his shades up so you can see him roll his eyes. He pulls the laptop Mom got him up onto his legs to change the playlist before it switches over. “You want to talk about anything else. Literally. Literally anything other than the thing that’s bothering you. I want you to talk about this. It’ll be good for both of you.” Dave looks at you, and you wonder if you have the same bags under your eyes, if it’s really that clear how bad both of you have been sleeping. “It sounds like you want to anyway. I dunno why you’re even asking me. Or not asking me. Telling me - badly, by the way. I never had much luck in that department, it kinda seems pointless. I can’t help you.”

“Because,” you start, gnaw on your lip.

Because you can’t talk to Rose. Your last conversation didn’t go very well, and you’re not in the mood to talk about it again on the off chance you really fucked up, or will fuck up again. Which you will, because you’re you, and because maybe you’re not as good about emotional shit as you thought you were. Maybe Dirk as a baseline for how normal people react to your piping hot mouth garbage is an inherently flawed practice.

You and Rose  _are_ currently in a tentative alliance, now that Roxy’s Mom is here, and neither you nor her (nor Davesprite) know how to handle it. It was a huge headache, honestly, that first day. Still is, but it’s. Different, you guess.

It’s really messing with you, if you’re being honest, and you’re almost certain that it’s fucking with him, too, if he’s not sleeping any better than you have been. You feel less fucked up now, but you’re still not over how you felt that first day, how you woke up at 9:45 AM, feeling like you got hit in the head with a sledgehammer, felt your stomach drop out, felt the whole timeline shift to the left, vertigo in overdrive.

You remember stumbling out of your room, vision spinning, whole world turned upside down.

You didn’t quite make it to the bathroom before you caved; you puked in the hallway. Mom wasn’t as mad as you thought she might be (she wasn’t mad at all, because she’s mom, and because it wasn’t your fault, you guess).

Things’ve been off-kilter since. But it’s been getting. Better, you think? You’re settling. Or Earth is. Fuck, you should really pester Jade, ask her if she’s feelin’ this half as bad as you and Dave are.

Time and Space go hand in hand, always have, always will.

“Because it’s different,” you finally say. “I shouldn’ta said that shit I said to Rose, even if I was sorta right.”

“You weren’t, I think,” he says slowly. “But from what she told me, she wasn’t either. It kinda sounds like you did it just to hurt her feelings, because she brought up something you wanted to forget, and she retaliated because what you said was fucked up and mean.”

“Yeah,” you sigh, drop your head back down to stare at the ceiling. No popcorn ceilings here in New York. That took some getting used to. You’re still getting used to it. Like sleeping alone, like not needing a fan, like not being able to hear sirens in the distance, the grating caws of the crows or stubborn gulls. It’s just. Weird. It’s okay, different but. Weird. It’s not helping the sleeplessness, you think, the level of discomfort.

You cannot possibly miss the apartment, not again. You do, however, actually miss Dirk.

“I mean I didn’t really - I guess I wasn’t really thinking. About how it sounded. And anyway, it’s different. Karkat and I weren’t actually dating.”

“You were,” Dave says. “But it’s fine that you don’t think so.”

You scoff, bite back on a retort. You can’t really be mad at him for it. It just feels... uncomfortable. Like something you don’t really want to address, or never really got around to, and maybe you’re just feeling like you never -

Well.

Whatever.

You guess you kinda burnt out after rambling at Roxy for a couple hours. “I don’t - I don’t know.”

“But you  _should_ talk to Dirk,” he says.

“I don’t want to,” you groan, rolling over to press your face into the floor. It smells like settled dust, feels old against your cheek. You wish that made less sense to you. “It’s hard.”

“Yeah, that’s always the problem isn’t it,” he snickers, and you flip him off.

He actually laughs, then, softly, and you roll your head to the side so you can breathe. You can see his shoes from here, tucked just under the bed, all worn out on the bottoms, just like your own (because they are, or were, or never got to be). You think about every time you ever lost your footing, skidding across the roof instead of falling, the smell of burning rubber and sweat on a hot day in April, in May, in June. You think about standing on top of Dirk’s apartment on LOTAK, how you had never been more sure of anything in your life, and never more terrified. 

You think of hallways, dim and grey, you think about how soft those rugs had felt, when Rose first made them, fourteen and tired of the cold, how if you pinched them between your fingers they felt fake, game constructs, tangible but lacking something genuine, unique. Copies on copies. You remember the couch, squished together watching movies for hours. All that time spent on the floor, elbows scraped and knees dusted in chalk.

You close your eyes as the timelines cross and make you dizzy. “How do you deal with it?”

You don’t have to explain yourself. Not to Dave. He sighs, quiet enough you almost miss it in a rustle of fabric. You crack an eye to see his legs swing over the side of the bed. The music continues, muffled against the comforter. “I don’t, some days,” he says slowly. “It never really mattered, back when I was Davepeta.” And that’s. Okay, whoa, that’s the first time you’ve heard him talk about that? “So I guess I just got used to it. Part of being a sprite. I ain’t callin’ it a perk. It’s honestly super fucked up. Being like, 1/100th omniscient and vaguely omnipotent, as well as being linked inescapably to your timeline and my own as a Dave, or at least as a Time player. I knew shit, and I still sorta know shit. But none of them really stand out to me much anymore. Sometimes I see slivers, bits and pieces of the other Daves.” He kicks your foot gently, toes cold enough that you flinch back. “Mostly me, mostly you, in varying forms. I know how things went with Terezi, and I’ve seen you with the other one.”

“Karkat,” you say sharply, manage a half-hearted glare.

He shrugs. “I know. It’s kinda obvious, honestly, when you think about it.”

You try not to chew on your lip, fail. You can’t be mad at him. You can’t be mad at Dave.

He has no right to your memories like this, not when you can’t access his. At least directly.

You can’t be mad.

_It isn't fair._

“Yeah. I guess.” You wiggle your shoulders in a weak shrug, trace a line in the hardwood that was put there by a dresser, seventeen years ago. “They’re never coming back, are they?”

It’s a thought you’ve never voiced, sitting on the tip of your tongue during every conversation with Rose, every almost fight you’ve ever had. Fear, resentment. Ungratefulness in the face of a universe that tried to give you everything it thought you’d need.

But you don’t have them.

Dave is quiet for a beat, first one, then two. You don’t count the seconds, but you don’t have to. It’s all you can hear, some days. You manage to drown it out, others. If anyone else’s aspect is fucking with them as bad as yours, they haven’t said. You’re trying not to be jealous. “I don’t know,” he finally says.

“That’s not fair,” you say lightly, but you can’t summon up more than bitterness. “How am I supposed to be mad at you for that?”

“You can’t,” he says. “That’s the point. You shouldn’t even be this mad at _yourself_. So why are you?”

“Are we still talking about the trolls?” you ask, even though you know the answer.

“No,” he says. “We could, if you wanted. I’m sure there’s plenty to unpack there, vis-à-vis latent xenophilia when combined with exploring your sexuality.”

“Ugh,” you say.

“Yeah,” he agrees.

You rub under your nose as you inhale a cloud of dust, try not to sneeze. It’s not even like you really wanted to talk about any of this in the first place. Maybe least of all with Dave. Or not least of all, because you honestly prefer him to Rose, and Roxy has a tendency to laugh, even when she’s nervous. “It always comes back to cutting off Dirk’s head during the final battle, I think,” you tell him, for no reason other than it’s pretty much the first thing that comes to mind when someone tells you not to do shit. There’s probably some issues you need to work out there. Later, though. “And it probably shouldn’t, y’know, because we’ve talked about it, and I know it started me down this absolutely batshit road of questioning morality and wondering about if evil actually exists, and how much of that is really all dependent on the viewpoint of the like, ‘good guys’, if you can even call them that, and I don’t think I ever got a real answer to that either? And I still think about it, all the time. Well not all the time. I told Bro I didn’t think about it all the time. I don’t think I was lying. It’s just a sometimes thing. Maybe a several times thing. I’ve stopped obsessing, anyway, but it’s really hard to talk to him about anything, because I feel like it always comes up, and I don’t know if it’s him or me or both of us, but I think we might actually be stuck in this weird rut, and he’s trying to be so fucking cool about it, really, even though it does hurt, seeing him ice fucking cold about his own death, hypothetical and otherwise, because I worry that if he doesn’t care about himself, he doesn’t recognize how deeply anybody else cares about him.”

Dave is quiet while you talk, and for too many seconds after, to the point where you do start counting, just for something to do. It’s agonizing. What he finally says is, “You cut off his fucking _head_?”

You raise yours to get a better look at him, frown. There is a good chance, you realize, that you never actually told him that. Wow, you really fucking just. Said all that shit, didn’t you? Oops? “Uh, yeah. I thought you had my memories?”

“Not,” he manages, “all of them.” You watch him go pale, all the blood draining from his face until he looks like a ghost, the way he used to. Like you. It’s almost satisfying, in a disgusting, morbid kind of way. “I mean, if I focus, I could probably - but I wouldn’t want to - _Christ_ , Dave.”

“Oh,” you say, lick your lips. Fucking. Dropped the ball on that one, didn’t you? It’s probably super fucked up that you didn’t actually talk about this sooner. Wow, you. Man if he had seen that in a memory without warning - Jesus, you really fucked up. “Well - It wasn’t like I planned it.” You sound defensive. Are you seriously being defensive right now? “I don’t think  _he_ even planned it, and this dude plans everything.” Oh god you are. Oh fuck how do you stop yourself. “Like seriously, pretty much every other death? Completely planned out. Practically choreographed and scored, starring Dirk and Dirk and Me. We should probably trademark that shit before it’s too late.” This doesn’t sound great, Dave. You clear your throat. “Anyway, he’s okay now. Obviously. Jane fixed him. I forget you weren’t really there for that part.” You take a breath, think, and then add, “Sorry.”

“You couldn’t have picked a more fucked up time and thing to tell me, dude,” he says around a laugh, voice strangled. Dave’s agonized enough that he rakes a hand back through his hair, knocks his shades off onto the bed. He doesn’t even bother picking them up. “Like honestly? We don’t even have time to unpack all of that. The fact that you didn’t tell me is -” He inhales, scrubs a hand across his face. “If you still haven’t fully addressed this with Dirk, you need to fucking try it again.”

“I sorta did,” you say, shrug against the floor. “Talks were had. He offered to let me do it again.”

“Is that -” He chokes. “Is that not a problem?”

You don’t have to think about it for more than a second. You’re not sure what that says about you. “No, not really.”

“You are unbelievable,” he says, and you’re up on your elbows before he can even set both feet on the ground, grab him by the arm and tug him down awkwardly as he takes the first step, as you see his knees buckle, before he can fall.

“Are you fucking - that was so - what the fuck,” you shriek through your teeth, and he’s not heavy, or at least not heavier than you, but he’s got an elbow jammed into your ribs and you’re pretty sure he took a year off your potentially eternal life.

He shoves at you, slaps your hands away. “Do you really not understand how messed up that is?” he snaps, pushes again. “Like dude, you fucking killed - Dave, you killed a guy. He - Christ, he’s okay, but are _you_?”

“Why does that _matter_?” you ask, hysterical. “Are you stupid? Why did you DO that? What were you trying to accomplish?”

“Practicing,” he huffs, and you untangle carefully, and though he doesn’t need your help, definitely doesn’t want it, you keep a hand steady on his shoulder until he’s folded with his legs tucked beneath him.

“Are you seriously trying to walk in the middle of a shitty conversation?” you ask, eyebrows up. “What are you gonna do? Leave?”

“Presumably to get the fuck outta this, yeah,” he laughs, but you can tell from the slant of his smile that he is only teasing, and it’s enough like Dirk that you flop backwards, cover your face so you can’t see the color of his eyes.

“I don’t want to talk about my fucking feefees,” you say.

“Bullshit, you talk to everyone else about your feefees.” He nudges your knee lightly. “And as fucked up and morbid as it pains me to admit, it sounds like you get each other. The fact that you’re not flipping the fuck out, having nightmares and shit, which, just for the record, I absolutely would be -”

“I do sometimes,” you admit softly, peek at him through your fingers. “I just. Try not to think about it. Shit’s fucked. It’s always been fucked. And anyway, didn’t you see John and Jade die?”

“There wasn’t much left of John to find,” he murmurs, eyes dropping to the floor. You feel your stomach turn over. “And Jade never actually made it in.”

“Right,” you manage, dread dripping down your spine, acid burning in your throat. “I did puke on the floor. After he told me he was cool with me choppin’ off his head again. For what it’s worth.”

His head jerks up, and eyebrows raised, he laughs. “Jesus. Okay, I stand by my original fucking statement. He already likes you, it’s obvious, and you’ll be o-fucking-kay.”

And you don’t know if that’s true. Maybe it is. It probably is. Partly, anyway. You know Dirk would do pretty much anything you asked him to. Dude’s way softer than he pretends to be. You let your arms flop onto the floor. “You’re probably right.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m probably overreacting.”

“Yeah.”

“But what if -”

“Stop,” he says, and this time he throws himself down next to you, slaps a hand over your mouth. You tug on his arm, but he’s a lot stronger than he looks, and you’re just a tiny bit miffed by that. “Listen, just shut up for five seconds. Nothing ever has to be concrete. You’re literally in the most unique situation where you have like, two people who are almost completely incapable of judging you, and you should take advantage of that. You don’t have to make it weird. But if you just let it hang in the air and stagnate and shit... really let that thing sit out in the sun, all stinkin’ up the place, gettin’ real nasty -”

You pinch his arm.

“Right. Sorry. That’s when shit gets fucked. So you’ve got muddled memories, juggling broken timelines like a goddamn clown. Join the club. I was part troll, dude. The worst you did was date two of them. It’ll be fine.”

You pry his hand off your mouth, open it.

“It’ll be fine,” he says again, and then he rolls away, drops onto his back, and you get the idea he isn’t looking for another argument.

“Your room smells like moth balls,” you tell him, instead of thank you.

“And you smell like shit,” he says, instead of you’re welcome. He elbows you gently. “Take a shower.”

“Fuck you,” you say.

“Like you could ever,” he scoffs.

You lull into silence, and you lie straight on your back, arch a little to pop your chest cartilage as you tuck your arms behind your head. It’s nice, the quiet. It’s another thing you like about Dave. About spending time with him. When it’s him, sometimes you’re quiet.

Most of the time you’re not.

You never did have that tendency, you think. Mindful silence. Any kind of Silence. Not like Dirk, not like Rose, not even when you were scared of Bro (but you’re still scared, aren’t you? Of Bro, you mean, of a lot of things, maybe), treading ever so carefully across the room in the mornings when you knew he had to be sleeping, back when you still went to public school, back when you didn’t know anything and sword practice was more like a joke than something you had to fear. He never did come to those parent-teacher conferences. You guess you always figured it was because he was your brother. You know better now.

You will say, for all Bro’s faults, he never tried to teach you silence. Never bothered to teach you any kind of mindfulness, really. Maybe he knew it was beyond you. Maybe he saw the bits of Mom and Roxy shine through, figured, _“Well,_   _there’s nothing I can possibly do about this situation, guess I better just leave it.”_

Maybe you’re like this because he was so quiet, and you were utterly, devastatingly lonely.

The world may never know.

What you say to Dave is, “Are you still afraid of Bro?”

You don’t expect him to laugh. He doesn’t. He just goes still against your side, and you feel some measure of guilt because you ruined something nice, again, and you’re not entirely sure it was an accident. “Uh,” he says intelligently. Clears his throat. “Yeah. I mean, duh. Of course I am.” You don’t look at him, because you’re not sure you’ll like what you find there. You hope he doesn’t look at you. “Why the fuck would you ask me that?”

“Because I think I miss him,” you say softly. You breathe in, lick your lips. You didn’t mean to say that. Yes you did. It’s too late to take back now, even if you wanted to. “Is that messed up? Like, three fucking years I finally got over that shit, built a bridge, did the whole song and dance. I thought it was all over. I really, genuinely thought,  _fuck that guy_. Seriously, what’s the point, right? Why would I miss someone who hurt me like that? Dude clearly didn’t even care, and he’s gone. He fucked up. I hate him. I’d be happy if I never saw him again.”

“But then he came back,” Dave says, and you swallow, nod.

“Yeah. Yeah, he. He came back. Is back. He’s back and Cal’s gone, or we’re all pretty fucking sure he’s gone, I hope he’s fucking gone, and I.” You press your lips together, bite them hard. Your eyes sting at the corners. “I dunno. I told Dirk once, that I wondered what it would have been like without him there. Hovering, leering over us and haunting my dreams and doing. Whatever it was. To Bro. If if was anything at all. If he wasn’t just... LIKE that?”

“He kinda gave me the impression there was something,” Dave mumbles, and you look at him, note how tired he is, this close up. It’s like staring into a fucked up mirror.

“Something like what?”

He doesn’t look back and you trace the shape of your own nose, the wear and tear on nervously bitten lips, raw and messy. “That it. Talked? To him?” He frowns, and it’s ugly, uncomfortable. “I mean fuck, it’s not like I’m surprised. You remember Calsprite. He never shut up. He never said anything, at least not anything I could fucking _understand_ , and I was still scared so shitless of that thing I could barely sleep.” He pauses, thinks about that. “Come to think of it, I don’t actually remember if I ever did, willingly.”

It’s not like  _you're_ surprised. You have always known something was wrong with Lil Cal. It’d be hard not to, growing up with that thing in your house. But you never thought of it like... Well it doesn’t matter, now. He’s gone.

“Who knows,” Dave sighs, and you hear him pop his knuckles against the floor. “Maybe it sounds stupid, when I think about it. What reason do I have to still be afraid of someone who will no longer hurt me? Maybe can’t, maybe doesn’t want to. I hope he doesn’t want to?” He laughs, but it’s not joyful, just full of hurt, a little damp around the edges. “I guess I have this notion that if I, if I believe in him. Or some shit. If I can accept that he’s capable of change, it’ll actually come.” Dave rolls his face towards you and you watch the knit of your own brow, think about how young he looks, how just bone-deep exhausted. “Is that stupid?”

Maybe it is. Maybe it’s too hopeful for both of you, better left to a different player, with a different aspect. You had never planned for this life, had never planned on seeing Bro again, had barely even had a grasp on the concept of Dirk, before you met him. You’re still afraid of Bro, still don’t know how to interpret almost anything he does. He’s still too fast, too angry, too - Well. He’s a lot more now, than he ever was before. Maybe that’s a good thing. You’re not sure.

“No,” you say, and you offer a shrug. “I mean, I don’t think so. It’s a little naive, maybe, both of us are. But he’s trying. He - he’s not nice. But I don’t think I hate him. At least not as much as I used to.”

“Yeah.” Dave stares at you, mouth thin, eyebrows tipped. “I guess it just seems. I can’t really say right, because I don’t think anything I’ve ever done really turned out right. But it feels okay, you know?”

“That’s not true,” you say instead. You reach out, wiggle around until you can knock the back of your hand against his. “You saved me, didn’t you? Fuck, you even managed to stop your own Rose from ceasing to exist completely.”

He looks surprised at that, and you kind of hate it, seeing your own face emote, you always have. You used to try so hard to hide all of that. You don’t know when that changed. “She told you about that?”

“A little,” you confess. “I didn’t really get what she was saying back then.” You drop your gaze, roll your head away. You think about her knocking you out on Derse, trying to save you from a suicide mission that neither of you entirely understood. “Shit was. Weird. Back then. Between us. Between all of us.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Do you think Cal did do something to him? That that’s why he was all -” He flaps a hand around in the corner of your vision.

He doesn’t have to explain. You wouldn’t want him to. It’s been on your mind for awhile now, how everyone else’s guardians came back whole, while yours is. Well you can’t say incomplete, because this is maybe the most like a person you’ve ever seen him in a long time. Practically your whole life. You think about the way he flinched, head in Dave’s lap, skin pale, lips blue. “I don’t know,” you admit softly.

“Yeah,” he sighs, settles back in, until the two of you are lying side by side with just your elbows knocking together. “I don’t know either.”

And then you both go quiet, listen to the sound of heels, distant voices, the gentle beat of rain as it starts to patter against the giant windows just one room away.

  
You must fall asleep there for a minute, or twenty, or an hour, probably not twenty, because you jolt upright when you hear a sharp rap on the door, manage to grab Caledfwlch before it tumbles completely out of your deck. If that ain’t the most embarrassing shit ever. You just pulled a Dirk for the first time in - shit, weeks, easy.

“Sorry to startle you,” a voice says, smooth as butter, and you can’t stop the chill that goes up your spine, don’t look directly at the figure standing in the doorway. “I thought it would be more polite to wake you, rather than let you sleep through dinner.”

“Uh-huh,” Dave mumbles, but he’s already scooting away from her, towards the bed, and you sit in the middle of the floor alone, clutching your sword (Jesus fucking Christ) with the icy sharp gaze of a Rose Lalonde you barely know trained on you.

It’s.

Well _she_ , as a whole, is completely unnerving. Everything about her, really.

It’s not that you’ve been hiding in the bedroom, exactly, just -

Okay, that’s definitely what you’ve been doing.

It’s not your first time dealing with a Rose, you know how the broad can be, you’ve known her for years, it’s just.

Well fuck you running, you are completely off-put and unsure of what to do with Roxy’s Mom.

Maybe that’s not fair.

It’s probably definitely not fair.

But Rose Lalonde (Senior) is six foot easy in heels, nearly your height without them (you’re praying for one more growth spurt, otherwise this means Rose’ll catch up and you’ll be the short one), and she has a demeanor that causes her to practically loom everywhere she goes. She’s so unlike your Rose, all sharp lines and long limbs, reminds you so much of Dirk it’s unsettling. The idea of her existing in the same room as Bro upsets you so viscerally you can’t even picture. Christ, what a shit show  _that_ would be.

She’s not. Well you want to say she’s not cruel, but you don’t really know. Yet, anyway.

You do know Rose (your Rose, of course your Rose) hates her.

Or at least hates being in the same room as her. Maybe the same general area. Plane of existence. You know. Things between them are not nearly as cordial as Roxy and Mom (though the three of them together get on like a house on fire, and you’re maybe just a little bit jealous), and you can hardly stay mad when you’re pretty sure she’s the reason you and Rose are talking again the first place. 

You look at Dave. _Little help?_

He shrugs. _You're on your own_. He continues acting like he’s too busy locking his chair into place to acknowledge either of you.

Motherfucker.

“Uh,” you say like an idiot, “yeah. Thanks. Ms, uh, Lalonde. Ma’am.” Nailed it. You ARE the southern gentleman Bro never raised you to be, it is you.

“You can call me Rose, Dave, if that’s easier for you.” She sounds so utterly amused, but it is. So fucking awkward. You are awkward. This is awkward.

“It’s not,” you say earnestly, instead of the shit that backs up in the pipeline. You’re going to need a verbal plumber when this week is over.

She regards you a moment longer, expression somewhat blank, which is terrifying, before she smiles, somehow more terrifying, and leaves with the wave of her hand. “Don’t be too long, then, both of you. Eggs are hardly any good once they’ve gone cold.”

“I am so sick of cold fucking eggs,” Dave says, once the click of her heels fades away. He doesn’t have to explain what he means.

“Yeah,” you say, still feel uneasy. “Me too.”

 

 

  
For a dude whose powers seem to revolve around but are not limited to clocks, you sure do have cosmically poor timing.

You weren’t even looking for her, really, because that’d be weird, and because quite honestly you’re not feeling shy about admitting to actively avoiding her.

It feels less like you find her, anyway, and more like she finds you, because there’s not a lick of surprise on her face when you open that door, and you know immediately that this is not a conversation you want to have.

She sits at the bar in the room Rose once believed to be her mother’s (and she’s your mother too, obviously, you know that, it’s why you’re looking for her - you’re getting off track) and you freeze in the doorway when you see her there, swirling a glass that looks suspiciously like it’s full of wine.

She doesn’t bother to glance your way, elbow on the counter and phone in hand, thumb clicking along at lightning speed. Despite yourself, you immediately flashback to the meteor, to a life you not-quite lived. Her dress is dark and long, trails down to the hardwood, and you think again how she’s always dressed like she’s ready to walk the red carpet. It was your first impression of her, even when she had come crashing inside during a light snow shower, hair wild and shoulders dusted white. Ethereal, menacing. You wonder if that has less to do with her being Rose and more to do with what she represents.

“Dave,” she says anyway, to your mortification, “what a pleasant surprise.”

“It didn’t sound like much of a surprise,” you say weakly, and when she beckons you over with a perfectly manicured hand, you waffle for a moment too long, silence stagnating. You think about Roxy’s bitten nails, your own. Rose’s jagged edges, painted black. You wonder how much of that is genetic, and how much is simple bad habit.  By the time you shuffle closer, you feel like a child.

“No, I suppose it wouldn’t,” she sighs, puts the phone down gently, like she thinks you’re a frightened deer, and turns to finally look you over. You feel distressingly self-conscious in your godtier gear, like you never have before. She’s just got one of those faces, you guess. “If you’re looking for your mother, you’ve chosen a poor location to begin. I rather think this would be the last place one might find her.”

“Yeah, she’s. Like that,” you say, uncertain, inch back towards the transportalizer. “But the lab is just - y’know, it’s easy to get to? From here?” Oh god why are you talking? What are you even doing? You just wanted to talk to Mom about - it doesn’t matter, you’re losin’ it here.

“By all means, don’t let me stop you,” she says, and that is just. Probably the nail in your curiosity coffin, because you stop dead in your tracks, take a second to frown at her.

“What?” you say, impudent, braver than you, specifically, have any right to be. Or maybe not, you think, because you’re a god, aren’t you? You’re a god, and this is your world, and you. Well. But maybe it’s not.

Roxy’s Mom doesn’t need to smile to be smug, and you both admire and resent the ability, find that it reminds you of - but you’re not doing that right now, you aren’t. “You’ve been almost unreasonably reticent since we met. Given how well I know your counterpart from my timeline, I found it to be an interesting disparity between you.”

You curl your fingers around the edge of the bar, bite back on a retort. You didn’t think she’d noticed, so wrapped up in Roxy and your mom and doing. Whatever. Talking on the phone, mostly. But then, of course she noticed. She’s Rose - or A Rose, anyway, and your sister - and she is your sister, she  _is_ Rose - has always known more than you about pretty much everything. Or at least, that’s how you felt, growing up. She definitely Saw more. There was no arguing about that. “Uh,” you say, and then can’t come up with anything else. It isn’t that you want her to think you don’t like her, because you barely know her, and the fact that Dirk’s version of you is no less of a fucking blabbermouth is somehow more embarrassing. Is that what he’s dealing with right now? Are you alternate timeline embarrassing yourself right now? Oh god, oh no, you hate this so much. You don’t know how many more Daves you can fucking handle at this point, honestly. It’s a miracle you don’t have his memories on top of everything else. What a shitshow that’d make. You don’t know what you would have done if Dirk had any of Bro’s -

Oh god.

Oh no oh fucking god please no.

Dirk’s version of you and your version of him are somewhere in an apartment in Texas, and who even fucking  _knows_ what’s going on over there.

Jesus fucking  _Christ._

“I hate this so much,” you groan, drop your head to the cool granite. “Listen, okay, I have no idea what you - look, I’m not that Dave. I mean I’m A Dave, y’know, same as any other Dave, to a point, and I guess it makes sense that he’d talk a lot because I have chronic ‘can’t shut the fuck up’ disorder, but -” You purse your lips, remember to breathe. You bang your head against the bar. _Thunk thunk_. “My life is a fucking circus.”

“I can neither deny nor comment on that,” she says, but it’s softer, amused, the tone she gets when she’s talking to Roxy. “I’m truly sorry. Comparing you to another version of yourself isn’t very fair.” _Shit_. “And on the whole I did mean that a bit more playfully than it came across. I didn’t intend to make you uncomfortable.”

You roll your head so you can frown at her, pillow your cheek on your hand. “See, I dunno if I believe that. Rose has pretty much made a career on making me and everyone else she has ever known uncomfortable. Whether it’s intentional or not doesn’t really matter.”

She tips her head, and it’s bizarre, really seeing Mom and Bro all mashed up together into an adult you barely know, almost can’t recognize beneath dark eyeshadow and a menacing aura. “Do I, then?”

You blink. “Do you what?”

“Make you uncomfortable. You said you found your own Rose to be vexatious. Are you afraid of me, Dave?”

And it was weird, before, but it’s kind of creepy, now. Hearing Rose’s voice, pitched deeper, with Roxy’s cadence, accent like your mom’s, curving around words smoother than Rose has ever managed, no matter how hard she tried.

It’s almost enough to make you forget the fucked up thing she just asked. How the fuck are you supposed to answer that properly? “I don’t know yet,” you say instead, truthful enough for no reason other than lying seems kinda pointless. “It feels weird, being expected to feel one certain way about a person I just met, ‘n have barely talked to, besides.”

“I would say that’s fair,” she says, gives an approving nod. “You certainly did so plenty early on in your life, but I can see you’ve worked hard to grow past that.”

You freeze for a moment, blood rushing in your hears, hand poised halfway up to scratch an eyebrow. It isn’t that you didn’t know something was different about her. About the alpha session guardians as a whole. Dirk said there were rumors about Roxy’s Mom, her ability to black out cameras, her... presence. “So you can do that too.”

She smiles, blithe, maybe a little false. “Do what?”

“See,” you say. “Things. Like Rose can.”

Roxy’s - Rose. You should call her Rose, at least for now. She quirks a brow, takes a sip from her glass before she speaks. “Perhaps not quite like your Rose can. After all, there was no session in my universe, only an eventually to prepare for, and a countdown to mind.”

You raise your head, think about the implications of that. Wonder, again, how much your Bro really knew, when you were growing up. “You knew, then? All that stuff, about the Game and - the meteors?”

“Yes,” she sighs, looks down at her phone for a moment. “I suppose I did.”

You frown. “How is that any different?”

Her smile twists bitter. “Because I am not a god. I never would be. It is the nature of a guardian, to Know. What we did with that knowledge varied. My best guess is that due to my nature - or hers, rather - I was a tad more informed. I did dream, some, and See, plenty, when I had the time.”

“Right,” you say, fold your hands together, lean against the bar. You’re not going anywhere right this second, you guess. “You wrote a book and stuff.”

“And stuff,” she repeats, but there is a touch of delight in her voice. “Quite.”

You shrug. “Hey, I’m not an award-winning author.”

“And technically, neither am I.” She winks. You wince. “At least not yet.”

“That’s not true,” you say. “You’ve got a couple of ‘em out there right now. Roxy told me.”

Rose looks surprised. It’s almost more natural. “Did she.” You try not to be bothered that it’s not a question.

“Yeah she’s uh,” you choke, scramble for something appropriate to say. Roxy is enthusiastic about many things, but she really fucking loves her mom. You ain’t out here trying to misrepresent ‘n shit. “She’s really proud of you. I’m pretty sure she spent her whole life trying to be like you.” You scratch absently at your arm, run a thumb along a scar that lies just under your elbow. “Kind of a familiar song and dance for me, I guess. Not really lookin’ to do it again. But I think there’s nothing wrong, lookin’ up to someone as a powerful role model and honestly, at that point, their only example of mankind.”

“Their,” she murmurs.

“Dirk and Roxy.”

“Hm. You said you don’t wish to relive it.” Because she’s Rose, so of  _course_ she latches onto that. “I suspect you are entirely aware, then, of the reason behind my brother’s aversion to puppets.”

You pause, take a shaky breath. You are now thinking, maybe with a little bit of alarm, that the scratch caused more of a bleed than just the connection between all of you and the shitty rabbit from Con Air. “Uh,” you say, flounder. “Yeah. Yeah maybe? I dunno. It seems kinda unfair to assume I  _gave_ that to him. At least not willingly.” You offer another pathetic shrug. “I ain’t trying to make anyone relive the fucky clown circus life I have lived. That wouldn’t be fair.”

She hums, brings the wine to her lips. “It would potentially be near-impossible to quantify exactly how much your session influenced ours, and how much is simply a universal constant. You do remind me of my brother, but you aren’t him, the same way I am not your sister, insomuch as we are all related to each other.”

You grimace, nod. “I guess I don’t have much to say about that. I’m the Time guy, but separate sessions feels more like a Space thing to me, and I’m not a Seer anyway, just a dude with a sword.” You pause, watch her sip the wine with a straight face. Rose never really got that far. She always seemed miserable. “Should you be drinking that?”

You think it would almost bother you more if she stopped, but all Rose does is take another long, entirely unnecessary slurp. She quirks a brow. “Whether I, specifically, should or should not be doing something is hardly any of your concern.”

“Shouldn’t it be?” you ask, foolishly. As if you’ve ever been anything else. “You’re Rose, right? At least sort of. You’re - she’s my sister. I care about her. And I know it’s not the same, and we’re all just a fucking data dump, but she doesn’t exactly have a history of being able to handle herself. Dunno if you got the memo, but this is a dry household.”

It’s not really your intention to antagonize, but it just comes pouring out, and you can’t quite stop yourself from cringing inwards when she frowns, puts her glass down with a heavy _clink_. “You’re assuming I’m an alcoholic.”

Well. That’s. A response.

“Uh,” you say, for the hundredth time, “aren’t you?”

She makes a dismissive noise, stares at you. Her eyes are no less sharp for her choice in beverage. You hate it.

You are beginning to realize, in a moment of panic, that she _does_  scare you, absolutely terrifies you, and that perhaps, even more hysterically, she scares you so much because she reminds you of _Bro_.

You don’t know if she actually stops to think about it, or if she’s humoring you, but after a moment she swirls her wine again, finally finishes the dregs. “No, she says simply. “I believe you are correct to assume I might be, given time, and perhaps a certain...” Her eyes flick to you, then back down, and you shift, discomfited. “Let's call it a lifestyle. But right now, as of this moment? I would not categorize myself as such, no.”

You don’t know what you’re supposed to say to that. This whole conversation is a tense, uncomfortable nightmare. You have gone completely off the rails here. You think about how she’s older than Mom, that you can feel that radiate off of her, that her entire being feels... wrong. There is something skewed here, time and space gone wonky around the edges of her being. If you squint, you can almost imagine her with silver hair. You remember to speak again when she puts a foot down off the bar stool, and you take a hasty step backward, almost crash into a cabinet.

She presses her lips thin, like Rose, like your Rose, and then she’s just herself again, and you feel no less out of place.

“Do you think it’s worth the risk?” you ask, bold, foolhardy. You shove your hands into your pockets as you shrug, feel your spine curve in on automatic. Maybe it’s just the fate Striders share, to have bad fucking posture. “Roxy cares about you like. Fuck, a shit ton. Metric, by the way. That’s how you know it’s a lot.”

“I don’t need the metric measurement of excrement to know my own daughter loves me, Dave,” she says dryly, and she smiles, but it feels off. Fuck, she reminds you so much of - “But the thought is appreciated, nonetheless. I will be...” She looks up, as if she’s thinking. “More careful, in this life. I suppose I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“That’s more fucked up to say,” you blurt.

“I can hardly disagree with you,” she says, a cold veneer. “I don’t mean to be so negative. You must forgive me, I do believe my people skills could use a little work.”

“I’m not exactly an expert myself,” you offer, strain to smile. It isn’t this Rose’s fault, how you feel, but she’s not doing much to warm you up, either.

“Oh, I think you’re stronger in that than you know,” she says, her long limbs spidering out as she unfolds from the stool and up to her feet.

You have never claimed to be brave, perhaps have never been any kind of brave, because you spook like a wild caught horse in a shitty movie from the 90’s.

What you’re saying is, you’re gone with the wind.

Wait, shit, that wasn’t a horse movie.

Honestly, you’ve listened to Dirk’s late night ramblings so much they’ve kind of conglomerated in your head into some kind of nightmare mega-horse. You have no idea what’s what anymore. Also, you don’t really give a shit.

She can barely open her mouth before you’re gone.

You flashstep outta there so fast you’re surprised you don’t clip through the wall, and don't actually breathe again until you're locked in your room, back pressed to the door.

Jesus fucking dicks you have never missed Bro or his cryptic fucking silence more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well! I'm sure she's not that bad! Anyway this was all extremely uncomfortable and I bet we all can't wait until we get another wholesome friendly chapter next time!


	38. interlude: plutonium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world's least reliable narrator takes the spotlight. Hal plays strawman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! This chapter is maybe only the second or third I'd actually say is Rated M. lmao  
> Cw for nasty shit, some descriptions of said nasty shit, Bro being kinda nsfw, more nasty shit, and extremely uncomfortable jokes made at really inappropriate times! Love you!

 

It’s been four days and you’re starting to feel cramped.

Okay, so you’ve been cramped for seven months. No surprise there. The apartment was barely big enough for you and Dave to start with, and this is.

It sure is something.

It hasn’t exactly been bliss, since you crawled back outta the pit, with 9/10th of your soul (apparently), feeling like you got hit by a truck and wishing for.

Well.

Let’s call it a break.

The atmosphere in the apartment has always been tense. You were always going to be the cause of that, and you were perfectly aware of this, were mostly at peace with it. And maybe that’s unfair, maybe you’re really coming to the realization now that you weren’t as okay with a lot of things that previously didn’t bother you.

Maybe they always bothered you, you just didn’t have the. The will. To voice your

Look, it sucks, alright.

The apartment sucks.

And maybe as a living situation isn’t sustainable for much longer?

Alright, so you know it’s not sustainable. Hasn’t been since you got back (probably before then, and maybe it’s time you admit that, too). Sure, you’ve made it work, and sure, no one’s exploded (literally) yet, but with this final Dave, this final squeaky fucking wheel, you can’t ignore it anymore.

There’s no way around it.

There is no way you’re all going to fit in this fucked up one bed/one bath apartment.

You can hardly ask Rox for an extension on your vacation (or it  was supposed to be, wasn’t it, a vacation, and look how that turned out), but the idea of cramming Dave and Dave, especially with his wheelchair (and that very much reminds you - you’ve been trawling the internet for weeks now, and think you’ve finally made at least That decision), two Roxys, two Roses (and fuck you, you aren’t prepared for whatever fresh hell that’s going to unleash) and one more fucking Dave on top of the pile? Insane. Literally insane. You can’t deal with it any fucking longer.

It’s bad enough that this Dave stares, potentially more than the other two, but he is insistent, much to your dismay, on getting to fucking know you.

You.

Well you want to hate him.

At least more than you already do, though to label it hatred would be a lie, when your feelings skew more towards resentment, a burning curiosity, uncertainty you’d never admit to, and the absolutely insane amusement spooking the ever-living shit out of him gives you.

You wonder, vaguely, if you’ll ever get over that.

The edge of resentment, you mean. You’re still not entirely sure Roxy ever did, though she seems to be handling it better, now that she’s finally sober. Leaps and bounds, that one.

You’re really fucking proud.

You will never fucking tell her.

  
Have you even spoken to them, darling?” Roxy asks, and you hear the echoing click that resonates with her journey across the power grid. “They miss you bunches, y’know. I can just tell! Dave ‘n Dirk talk every night, it’s so fucking cute I could squeeze him - don’t tell him I said that.”

You make a face where she can’t see. “I wouldn’t,” you say, disdainful, “even if you asked me to.”

“But you _won't_ , because you won’t call them!” You are almost certain she stomped, partly because she’s Roxy, and partly because the attitude she’s pulling right now is more like a high schooler than a thirty-something year old woman.

“They don’t need to hear from me right now,” you say, lean back against the AC unit. “Or ever, really.”

You’re not entirely sure that’s true. Dave can be sensitive, a little softer around the edges than you would have liked. It doesn’t matter now, anyway, all of that, so you’re trying not to dwell on your own personal failure. At least not that one. You also don’t really want to be hiding right now, but this  _new_ Dave is fucking impossible to shake, and if he’s not on the phone, he’s talking to Dirk, and if he’s not talking to Dirk, he’s bothering you.

You don’t know when you got so claustrophobic. Maybe you’ve always been like that, always had that feeling of.

You don’t know.

Closing in, your chest collapsing inwards because you don’t have room to breathe.

You spent most of your childhood alone, liked it that way, and you were way past cold by the time Jane Egbert found you, offered you kindness you didn’t want and couldn’t accept (but you did, didn’t you, pathetic and human, you let yourself soften, if only for a moment, and look where that led you, look how you failed - you stop, bite back on that, you can’t do that anymore you can’t be like this because).

Well you like being alone better, anyway, and the only adult you’ve ever let get this close to you for an extended period of time is Roxy, and she barely counts. Maybe never counted. You’re not enjoying it for any of the right reasons.

“Of  _course_ they need to hear from you,” Rox wails, exasperated, and you know she’s facepalming over there, can practically hear it. “They’re still kids, yanno. Kids need parents.”

“I don’t think they’ve needed us for a long time,” you sigh, push your thumb down against your middle finger until the joint lets out a satisfactory crack. “Dunno if you remember this, Roxy, but we were actually dead for three years.”

“I think remember is a strong word,” she laughs, but it’s hurt, which means you’ve gone too far again. No surprise there. You should apologize.

You don’t, but you at least acknowledged the option, and you think that should count for something.

(It doesn’t.)

“Do you remember dying?” she asks, and it’s not so unlike her, you think, to be so morbid. You remember the first time she figured out how to clone cats, the phone calls that lasted for weeks. Absolutely disgusting, the both of you.

Still, the question brings forth your worst memories, or your perceived notion of them, anyway, like a sword in the gut, like a scaled hand digging into your palm, like the flap of a wing (singular), and blood bubbling out of your lips, still hot and coppery against your tongue.

“Yeah,” you say, because there’s no reason to lie, not to Roxy, at least not today. You would not call yourself a liar by nature, although to say you are beyond bending the truth would be utterly fictitious. You do what needs to be done, simple as that. That’s the kind of man you’ve always been.

You’re also not beyond curiosity, at least not anymore, and you press your shoulders to the cool metal box of the AC unit and close your eyes against the glare of the sun off the neighboring buildings. “Why.”

“I’ve just been thinkin’ about it,” she says, voice low. “Whether they actually meant anything at all in the grand scheme of things, or if we were just pieces in a narrative that persisted long enough to get the kids where they needed to go.”

You actually pause at that, think about how easily you fell in line, how nothing before mattered, the path from point A to point B inconsequential as long as you got there. “Can’t it be both?”

“I don’t know if I want it to be,” she murmurs, and it’s unlike her, your Roxy, to be softened to an uncertain mumble. Familiar, if nothing else. “It’s just been on my mind, I guess, since Lil Ro-Lal’s mama crash-landed.”

Right. She’s got a big version of her own kid now, to take care of, potentially. “How is that. For you.” Way to go, genius. Could you sound like you cared any less?

“Oh, she’s fine,” Roxy sighs, and you hear the sound of her dropping down into her computer chair, the creak of the keyboard drawer as she drags it out. “She drinks, sometimes.” _Christ_. “She’s really quite charming, you’d like her.”

You exhale out your nose, press your thumb and forefinger up under your shades to rub where the pads dig in. “Roxy,” you start.

“It’s not so bad,” she offers weakly. “I mean, I ain’t usually tempted, anyway, not when Rose and Roxy have been countin’ on me ‘n the like. And she does real good, Big Rose, distractin’ me, or offerin’ me a glass of water instead. She’s super nice, I promise.”

You have a hard time believing anyone who is quantifiably similar to Rose is anything remotely resembling nice. “Nice people don’t drink in front of alcoholics,” you say.

She snorts. That. Surprises you. “They do if they are polite people with good manners who were _invited_ , Dirk, to sit with me while they finished their glass.”

And perhaps that’s just like her, isn’t it, to show that kindness. You don’t know if you buy it. “You’re too soft,” you tell her. “She’s not your daughter, and you can’t try to fix her.”

“I’m not,” she huffs, but even after all that, you don’t think you believe her. “She’s a fucking adult, Dirk, she can make her own decisions and there’s nothing for me to try to fix! And I wouldn’t, anyway!”

“You would,” you say, roll your neck until it pops. “But it’s fine that you don’t think so.”

“I think maybe you’re not really the best person to measure softness against,” she says, and then snickers. “You can take that however you want, btw, if it makes you feel better.”

“Rox, almost nothing you ever say makes me feel better,” you lie, like a liar.

“And yet you keep callin’ me,’ she purrs, sugar sweet.

“You’re the one who called me,” and you sound defensive, know you don’t have any right to be, cave for Roxy, just a little. You’ve never been good at telling her no. “But you’ve been. Good company, at least.”

“Wow, Dirk,” she drawls, and even sober the smugness radiates off her, “that almost sounded like a compliment.”

“Take it or leave it,” you grunt, but all she does is laugh.

“I’ll take it,” she says. “But only because I know you’re a way bigger loser than you think you are.”

“That’s offensive,” you tell her, feel your mouth curl on the lefthand side. “What you’re doing right there? Is offensive.”

“You like it when I bully you and we both know it!”

And you know, despite your protests, maybe she’s right.

So here’s what it comes back to: you should talk to Dave. Both Daves. Roxy thinks they want you to, and you don’t entirely agree. It’s not that you’re afraid, because that’d be ridiculous, and you’re not sensitive to rejection, at least not to the point where one of them not picking up would bother you.

It just feels like you’ve all finally got some room to breathe, and why ruin a good thing?

But you know, deep down - or not so deep down - that thinking it’s a good thing at all is inherently problematic. You cannot keep doing this thing you’re doing.

The problem is, you’ve spent so long doing it, so long carving pieces of yourself out because you didn’t need them, or didn’t want them, and they were useless, weren’t they? You did what you had to without them. And now you

You’re alive, anyway.

You take a moment for yourself, breathe in, bang your head back against the AC.

_Shit, fuck_.

You are so fucking tired.

You’ve spent the last seven months being tired, haven’t you. You rub at your eyes, feel satisfaction in the way it soothes the itch, just for a moment.

You cannot continue on like this.

 

  
He’s sleeping on your futon again.

It’s happened a half-dozen times at varying intervals, maybe more, and you’re unsure if it’s a passive-aggressive attempt to spite you, or a genuine mistake.

You’ve slept on the floor of Dirk’s room for the past two days, and quite honestly, the freckles blooming across your arms from your time hiding on the roof are just. Downright embarrassing.

Glasses lopsided, mouth hanging open and arms bunched up by his head, he looks like your Dave, but viewed through a funhouse mirror - everything’s there, but not in the right order. Pointed nose (you note, with interest, that it lists ever so slightly to the left, which means it was set better’n yours, but he’s definitely broken it, at least once), scruff dusting his chin, more like you than anything, thin, pale skin. He’s got a nick just under his lip, and you wonder for a moment if you two share more than just a common starting point.

He makes a soft sound, presses his face further into his hand.

You snort, think about kicking him. You know, for fun. Just a kid, really, as if you’re one to talk.

You know now, that this Dave lived longer than you, upwards towards sixty or some shit before he kicked it. Hard to say exactly how being wedged back into a younger body is affecting him, if at all. How the fuck would you know, anyway, you kicked it early and if nothing else you’ve got less lines to show for it. He sure as shit sleeps like an old timer, though.

A small part of your brain, a tickle in the back of your mind that’s sharp as a stinging needle, reminds you of all the ways it’d be easiest to kill him. You could snap his neck before he opened his eyes, you could draw your sword, you could smother him, easy easy oh so easy.

You ignore them, push back against the idea. It’s becoming a little easier to do lately, like a fly on the shoulder that you’re so close to killing you can almost feel the guts ooze between your fingers.

You wish you had a camera for this, but none of them were ever intended for anything other than macabre puppetry, and you’re well within the realm of capable enough to handle that by your fucking self.

Still, the loss is noted. Oh well. Comedic timing isn’t everything, you guess.

You reach out slowly, ever so slowly, note the angle, correct your trajectory,

and flick him so hard on the bridge of the nose that his shades go sailing into the kitchen.

There’s a sword at your throat before they even hit the floor - and they do, with a loud fucking clatter in your otherwise silent apartment. The shades bounce a foot back up before landing in the open dishwasher, and you almost smile.

Gooooaaalll.

Glancing down, you note that he sliced your thumb wide open - nicked the edge of your fingernail while he was at it. You’ re really,  _really_ okay with it for the sharp, nasty-mean look he gets in his eyes before he realizes it’s you (again). There’s just something to appreciate about a person willing to kill without hesitation. What can you say? You’re a fucked up dude.

You stick your thumb in your mouth absently, lick it clean to assess the damage, decide it’s not a big deal. Sword was clean, sharp as anything. Risk of infection is minimal unless he’s laced it with poison, which you deem unlikely. You will admit you can’t remember if you bothered to restock the bandages at all recently. You don’t even remember the last time you went shopping, though, so that’s not sayin’ much at all, is it? Your brain may as well be Swiss fucking cheese, some days. Maybe you need actual help. Or at least a day planner.

“Hey,” you say after another thirty seconds, when all he does is gape at you, and you start to feel invisible bugs, crawling up and down your spine. You stop short of shaking your shoulders to dislodge the image.

“Oh god,” is all he says, eyes both comically and unnervingly wide as his sword disappears into his deck with a single flick. You’re almost disappointed, but don’t have time to dwell on it as he scrambles upright, presses a hand to your neck. “Shit, fuck, oh my god.”

Well this took a weird turn. “We should probably talk a lil more before we engage in that kind of relationship,” you deadpan, attempt to lean out of his space. There is still a part of you that you have to fight against whenever someone invades your personal space, that makes you grit your teeth and go on edge in a way you hate.

Big Dave (and you hate to call him that, because it’s stupid, but you sure as fuck ain’t callin’ him “Bro”, and you haven’t come up with a proper nickname yet) blinks like an idiot. He is so many parts of Roxy in that moment, it’s almost funny, maybe softens you, just enough that you don’t take his hand off you. “What?” A frown, lines that tighten around his eyes, a wrinkle in the brow, a crease he never quite loses. Confusion, irritation, not deadly, maybe a little amusing. He follows as you bend away from him, dumbass long-limbed freak, just like you, hand pressing insistently on your jugular. “No, what the fuck are you talking about, Jesus dicksucking Christ, I fuckin’ filleted you with my sword and you didn’t even notice?” He shows you his hand, blood-slicked fingers.

You stare. Try very hard not to crack a joke because he wouldn’t appreciate it, anyway. You’re a little surprised, really. You didn’t even feel it. Maybe that’s for the best. You very distinctly remember the last time you felt a sword injury (and the one time, before that, a mixture of frustration and pride - probably best not to dwell, or if you’re going to dwell, not right now, in front of a dude who thinks he hurt you).

“Shit shit shit,” Dave is spitting, teeth grit and eyes tight. There is something uncomfortably intimate, being able to see the color of his eyes like this, familiar flecks of amber ringing his pupils. “Are you alright? Fuck, we should put some pressure on it, c’mere.”

There are times when he is more you than anything else, like now, harsh and easily frustrated. You lean away further just so he has to chase you, take a second to really enjoy the way he scowls at you.

Dave huffs, wraps his bloody hand in your collar and yanks you back towards him roughly. Petulant, demanding. You’re hardly surprised. “I’m tryin’ to help, dude, stop being ridiculous.”

“I am incapable of being literally anything else,” you say, and flashstep away to the bathroom. There’s a thunk and a swear as his elbow meets the table. You take a second to smile. Haha.

You tilt your chin towards the mirror to get a better look and - huh. “I’ll be damned.” He did get you, first time in awhile, definitely a bit more aggressive. Still, nothing too serious, probably a bit shallower than your thumb (you had kind of forgotten about that, and by the time you use your middle finger to hold it closed, there’s blood running into your glove; laundry day, then). It’ll bleed for a bit, but it doesn’t hurt when you tug the skin down, and there’s no real damage to be found.

To say you’re disappointed would be inappropriate, but it’s definitely deeper than he’s ever gone before.

There’s something absolutely terrible about that sentence, but because you’re you, you refuse to take it back.

It almost spooks you, just a fraction, when Dave pops up beside you, before you can even blink, squatting at your feet, shoulder bumping into your knee as he rummages under the sink and mutters to himself.

“I’m such a fucking idiot, why did I even fall asleep with that thing in there, Jesus, Rose was right, I really need to stop this shit, could’ve ejected and killed myself - again oh god I could’ve killed Dirk and - shit, where did I put that gauze, did the gauze even time travel with me, I don’t know why the fuck it would, but I don’t see why it couldn’t. Fucking coffee table’s here and I didn’t even like the damn thing. Don’t know why I picked cinder blocks anyway I mean it was funny at the time right but in retrospect it seems kind of shitty, doesn’t it? Where the fuck is the peroxide, shit shit shit -”

You decide to take pity on him, because really, this is just getting ridiculous, and you’re bleeding all over your shirt. “Peroxide doesn't actually do shit, but we’ve got rubbing alcohol under the kitchen sink, if you’re that desperate,” you tell him, opening the medicine cabinet. Behind the pill box Roxy brought home (bluh) is a box of Disney bandaids, which you lean down to wiggle in his face.

He grabs them and doesn’t say thank you, and you follow him out, take a moment to swing by the kitchen (you leave the shades, not your problem) before dropping down onto the futon. Already got blood on it before, didn’t you? Why not make it worse (not that that was your choice, but hey, the old thing probably needs replacing anyway - and who the fuck are you, thinking that? Some kind of responsible ass adult?)

Dave descends on you immediately, and you let him “patch you up” for no other reason than the way he looks at you when you push back is just aggressive enough to be funny. “What the fuck were you thinking?” is the first thing out of his mouth as he folds himself onto the coffee table in front of you, long legs effectively trapping you on both sides.

You pretend it doesn’t bother you, shift away from his knee. He just presses closer. You roll your eyes, careful not to flinch as he reaches for you. You can’t hide the grimace when cold fingers touch your neck.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, retreats quickly. A little self-conscious, maybe.

“S’fine,” you say, and you have no reason to take off your shades, why would you, but something about the way he looks at you - well you almost do, just for a second. You lift up your thumb, finger still pressing it closed. “Wanna take care of that first, chief?”

Dave stares a long second, sighs out his nose. He’s not as chatty now, at least, and that’s something. You’re both quiet as he wrestles your glove off. You could do it, you both know that, but he doesn’t even ask and that.

Well.

That fascinates you.

All the ways he is Dave, all the ways he’s not. He’s older than you, louder, more emotional. Meaner, than you expected. You like that. You’re not sure what that says about you.

There’s a callus on his thumb that snags on the edge of your Ariel bandaid, and you note the placement, admire the symmetry there, between his and yours. You guess it’s a little narcissistic, to pluck and pull at this Dave, to find the nuance between you, but sometimes, you can’t quite help yourself.

When he reaches for you again, you let him, don’t wince when he dabs alcohol against your skin.

Well, no time like the present.

“As fun as this is,” you  start, clearing your throat, “I do actually need to ask you something.”

“Fire away,” he says distractedly, taking a second to thumb the cut. His brow is furrowed now. Worry? Irritation? It’s unclear. Whatever it is, it’s a little intimate for your tastes, and you don’t particularly deserve the kindness. You clasp your hands together to avoid any accidents.

“The kids were s’posed to come home tomorrow,” you start, can’t stop your teeth grinding a little as he takes extra time to clean the blood that dripped just below the hem of your shirt. You take back everything nice you’ve ever said. Dude’s got just as little focus as any Dave you’ve ever met. “I reckon that wouldn’t be trouble, in any other circumstances, but -”

“What, want a limo ride to the airport?” He says it with an almost smile, which slides off his face as soon as he sees yours.

You are extremely proud of the way you do not mock or maul or cut him down to size. It’d be so easy, with your proximity, with the way he leans into your space like he has nothing to fear. “But,” you continue, as if he didn’t interrupt like a rude ass bastard, “kids don’t usually fly alone.”

You don’t think you’ll have to elaborate on that, and don’t really want to. It was one thing, squeezing a buncha kids into one room. S’a whole ‘nother thing, dealing with four fucking adults - and you wouldn’t put it past Roxy to bring the whole brigade, because that’s the exact kind of person she is.

And you don’t need to spell it out, given the wide range of emotions flitting across his face, and you’re amused, as well as relieved. “Shit, okay.” He fishes out a Mickey bandaid and peels it free, smoothing it over your neck with extreme concentration, pursed lips and careful fingers. “Christ,” he sighs, pushing himself up, and it almost baffles you sometimes, when you catch him at it, moving like a man twice his age, easy. He stretches, pretends to dust himself off. Pretentious little fuck. “I’ll go call Lalonde. See if I can’t convince her to postpone their departure while I ensure ours.”

Uh.

Fucking  _excuse_ you?

You scoff, remain blank when he looks at you in question. “What makes you think I’m goin’ with you.”

It ain’t that you don’t want to see the boys.

Well maybe you don’t.

You do, a little, even if you feel, quite strongly, that they’re better off without you. You served your purpose. Why the fuck won’t anyone let you rest?

Dave snorts, a mockery of yourself in a wrinkled suit, and you demote him to David in your head, for that and that alone. He reaches out like he’s going to - but your hand is already up, wrapped around his wrist.

“Don’t touch the hat,” you say, seriously.

“Fuck your hat,” he says, and when he tugs free, you let him, watch him circle around towards the kitchen to fetch his shades. “Listen, dude, it’s laughable you think anyone is leaving your dumb ass here alone.” He bends down to retrieve them from the dishwasher and you pointedly look away, because you’re nothing if not a polite Southern gentleman. “You really think I’m gonna leave the person taking AEDs alone for however long our little rendezvous takes? As the fuck if.”

You aren’t expecting that, and you hesitate.

He notices, stares you down. “Did you not think I was nosy enough to look? To find them? Did you think I wouldn’t recognize that shit? He slides his shades on, adjusts them like the pompous dick he is. You wonder if he even realizes how much of what he does is pageantry alone. “I didn’t, actually, I had to google it,” he adds almost immediately, “but fuck, dude, do you have epilepsy?” You can see the gears turning but you can do nothing to stop them as he opens his mouth and keeps fucking talking, a mile a minute like he snorted a line. “Oh shit, does  _Dirk_ have epilepsy? Oh god, is a plane safe for you? Is there a flight risk, should I even put y’all in a car at all? Is that dangerous? Should I get us a private -”

You hold up a hand and just like any other Dave, he folds like a card tower. Watching his jaw snap shut with an audible click shouldn’t be so satisfying. “First of all,” you say, slow, so he gets the fucking message, “as far as etiquette goes on asking people private shit like that, I’m pretty sure that’s astronomical levels of hella fucking rude. No, I don’t have fuckin’ epilepsy, no he doesn’t have it either, and I’m not a child, I could  _fly_ the damn plane if I fuckin’ needed to? Comprende?”

Dave frowns, a line pulling at the corner of his mouth the same way it does on Roxy’s. A circus. Your life is a circus. “Why do you need to take them if there’s nothin’ wrong with you?”

A bark of laughter you can’t quite control. Involuntary. What the fuck is it with Daves and _questions_? “I didn’t say there was nothing wrong with me.” And if it sounds defensive, there’s no one around to call you out. Embarrassment curls around your gut like a viper, ready to lash out because you’re tired, you’re so tired of this conversation, the way your. The way  _people_ look at you, the way they poke and prod and _“Are you sure you don’t need anything, anything at all?”_ and you’re so goddamn sick of feeling like a broken toy that nobody goddamn wants.

“Uh. Hey.”

At six foot one, it should be impossible for Dirk to look so small, hovering in the doorway, out of place, like he doesn’t belong, like he’s interrupting. You guess he kinda is. Fine with you, kid’s practically a hero in your books right now. Gonna give him a good ol’ cuff on the head, a _“nice goin’ sport.”_

Not literally, of course, Jesus Christ, you’re not a father figure. But figuratively.

Metaphorically speaking.

David’s attention slides off you like a silk dress on prom night, and you feel the tension unwinding in your stomach.

But you’re not free yet, and when Dave’s face breaks into a smile, he throws you under the bus. “Hey dude. How you feelin’ about a cross-country excursion to see the wicked witch of the East?”

“If that was a jab at Roxy’s mother, she won’t find it very clever.” You watch the anxiety leak out of Dirk’s shoulders as he crosses the room to sit on the edge of the futon. Kid’s soft on Dave, but he’s not stupid. “Why.”

Dave gestures to you. “Big man here was just pointing out to me that there’s not a lot of breathing room here. Dunno if there ever has been, really. Kinda feels like maybe it was a claustrophobic nightmare? ‘N anyway, if you stayed here instead of visiting Manor À Lalonde with the uh, other kids,” and he falters there, and you feel some justification, for how absolutely disgustingly weird your life has been the past seven months, “then maybe you’d like to get a greeting in, after all. Scope the sights, check out the whole New York scene.”

You would hardly call Roxy’s cabin in the woods the “New York scene” but it’s at least big enough for the absolute clusterfuck you’ve somehow managed to populate Houston with.

Dirk looks at you first, and you think that just about breaks his Dave’s heart. But you know him, and you know he hates flying just as much as you, know that there’s few things on Earth either of you hate more.

But the little shit knows you just as well, to your irritation, frustration, and dismay, and there’s a calculating tilt to his head that makes you want to stop him before he can open up his mouth and say -

“Are you coming with us?”

“No,” you say, at the same time David says, “Yes.”

You stare at each other behind shades, and in the corner of your vision, Dirk smiles a little.

“I’m not leaving you here, you big stubborn idiot,” Dave says, and you’re pretty sure if he wasn’t leaning against the counter, he’d have stomped like a child. His mouth is doing something, though, and you see the edges of Roxy’s pout start to form like a warning bell before a storm.

“You ain’t my mother, jackass,” you snort.

“He’s got a point,” Dirk says softly, that hesitant tone he uses when he’s unsure of how you’ll react, like he thinks it’ll piss you off. Not like that’s hard. Everything lately either frustrates or annoys you, and it’s a cycle you don’t know how to break out of.

You’re very tired.

You look at him and his head jerks to your neck, then away. Shit. That’s going to be a problem. What you say is, “I can take care of myself,” like a fucking child.

“I’m more worried about what DS will do if he finds out we let you get your way on this particular issue.” He’s got a point. You resent it. Dirk shifts to pull both feet onto the futon, folds his hands together. “I barely convinced Dave to let us stay behind in the first place, you know.”

“That was for their sake,” you mutter, don’t look him in the eye. Most of the ridiculous shit you’ve put yourself through in the past seven months has been for one Dave or another. You’re not entirely sure how that happened, how your focus switched, or maybe it didn’t or. You stop yourself before you rub at your eyes. You’re just going in circles. For whatever reason you’ve done it, you’re starting to run out of that fountain of patience, and you’re genuinely surprised you’ve lasted this long.

Dirk crosses his arms over each other, pulls them against his stomach. Oh god, not this. Not again. You can handle a lot, but emotions are just as uncomfortable and foreign to you as a battering ram straight up the ass. Seeing them reflected on your own face, almost twenty years younger, is a bitter pill. “I would be more comfortable if you were to accompany me. On the plane.”

Yeah, okay, at least that’s pretty much still the same. Fucker’s got pinpoint accuracy when it comes to manipulating you. It’s kind of a nightmare.

“I’ll think about it,” you tell him instead, and then lean your head back so you don’t have to look at anybody.

 

  
You do not call your Daves, despite thinking about it for several hours. You don't pester them, either, even though you open the application a half dozen times. You've already talked to Roxy, and though she's not thrilled by the idea of short notice company, she did sound genuinely relieved to hear you were coming.

You're not actually sure how you feel about that. You don't doubt she's been doing her best, but her "best" can range from wildly enthusiastic to just. Super fucking shitty, so.

But you're not really in the right place to judge, are you? You're the pot, and you ain't got shit to say to the kettle. On the subject of kitchenware, your lips are sealed.

You finally get a second alone, to breathe, to just be, when it happens, because your life has never been easy, whether it was self-inflicted or not, whether you ever had complete control of that aspect or not. You don't know. Doesn't matter.

Dave is on the roof again. Dude gets fifty calls an hour, picks up maybe 2% of any of them, and you reckon he must have big money (you know he has big money), or is avoiding that money, because the guilty, hesitant looks he shoots your way and Dirk's before he retreats increase by the day.

Dirk, for that matter, is tucked away in his room, messaging his friends or just. Doing kid stuff. Making a huge mess, probably.

You're about to take a fucking nap, claim the futon for yourself the way you and your back deserve. You turn on the TV, settle down with your pillow (it reeks of someone else's shampoo, but the smell isn't bad so you can't complain) and reach up to take off your shades.

Which of course is when it happens.

You haven't thought much about the shades you've been borrowing; your own never did make it back and you've got spares, sure, tucked away in a box somewhere, safe and boring and

Listen, they're convenient, alright?

The pesterchum window pops up on its own, and the red text is familiar enough at first that it takes you a second to notice it's wrong for the familiarity of the handle.

TT: It has come to my attention that you intend on accompanying my bro and counterpart to New York.  
TT: Given the circumstances, I felt it pertinent to introduce myself now, before this gets completely out of hand.

Okay.  
Well.  
What the fuck.  
You kind of know what the fuck. You're not dumb. You know about his little AI project.

TT: you're the robot, then.  
TT: That's hurtful, and dare I say it, borderline speciesist of you  
TT: that ain't a word.  
TT: But it should be.  
TT: you can't just say racist like a normal person.  
TT: But I'm not a person.  
TT: At least not in the way you might define humanity.  
TT: does this have a point.  
TT: not to cut it short here but i do have plans.  
TT: I hardly call taking a nap in the middle of the day a proper plan.

You pause, frown.

Something feels off about that.

About this red text and automated tone.

TT: are you watching me?  
TT: Maybe, maybe not.  
TT: Watch implies vision, and that is not exactly what I have.  
TT: i'd advise you knock it off, whatever it is.  
TT: don't take kindly to the idea of being observed, especially not this creepy "i can see you but you can't see me" bullshit.  
TT: Oh no you wouldn't, would you.  
TT: With your hyper vigilant ninja shtick going on there.  
TT: I'm impressed really.  
TT: listen, kid.  
TT: and that is what you are, in case you forgot.  
TT: a kid.  
TT: i'm not really in the mood to fuck around, here.

And you're not, never really are, but especially not now, exhausted (you're always exhausted) and annoyed (you are almost always annoyed) and discomfited by invisible eyes on you, hypocrite though you may be, and there is something

Off.

Something feels off.

You can't put your finger on what.

TT: My apologies. I think we got off on the wrong foot.  
TT: Metaphorical, as well as robotic.  
TT: Hello, my name is Hal. I have also been called AR, or Autoresponder.  
TT: I'd rather you called me Hal.  
TT: Being that it is, as previously mentioned, my fucking name.

Something in you catches like a loose thread on a barbed wire fence and your mind, or your heart, or maybe your soul, shies away from the idea of him, which only makes you that much more curious, only makes you want to gnaw harder until you unravel this mystery.

Hal.

_Hal_.

Your left eye starts to burn, and you rub at it absently.

TT: It's nice to meet you.  
TT: yeah sure.  
TT: look this is great and all but.  
TT: i can't fathom what you could possibly want from me here.  
TT: I don't know why I have to want something.  
TT: because you're just like the kid.  
TT: you're dirk, right. to a point.  
TT: he always wants something, even if it's just information.  
TT: Calling me Dirk would be like calling YOU Dirk, and we all know how much you hate that, don't we, "Bro".  
TT: dunno why that's any of your business.  
TT: It's not.  
TT: I just found it interesting that you distance yourself from your own moniker and appear to have done so for most of your life.  
TT: are you googling me right now.  
TT: Right now would imply I need the time to do so, which I do not.  
TT: So no.  
TT: Was I, past tense?  
TT: Of course.  
TT: You're an interesting man with an interesting life.  
TT: nothing about my life was interesting.  
TT: I beg to differ.  
TT: You graduated quite young, you know. It's impressive.

You sit up slowly, feel yourself frown, muscles in your neck and jaw tight, a sensation starting to pool itself in your chest, like cold water in the lungs, like blood rushing in your ears. You are not easily unsettled. You just wish you knew  _why_. Perhaps it's simply the tone of his text, the condescending amusement and childish satisfaction he gets from watching you react. Perhaps it's something more.

You don't know.

Hal, why does that sound so familiar, _"Hal."_

_Because it's his fucking name -_

But no, because you knew that, right, you knew his name was Hal but this is different why is it so  _different?_

TT: i had better things to do. best to get that shit out of the way early.  
TT: You could have left at any time.  
TT: it was easier at the time to just finish. kept everyone outta my hair, let me do what i had to.  
TT: I doubt pressure to finish school in the early nineties played much of a hand in your college attendence.  
TT: it didn't. i dropped out, didn't i?  
TT: I suspect that had more to do with your package being delivered that same year, no?  
TT: what the fuck would you even know about that.  
TT: Most libraries keep a local newspaper archive, it's not like I had to dig very far.  
TT: They've got your crash on record too, you know.  
TT: From back in the seventies.  
TT: it doesn't matter. it happened. school didn't happen. whatever.  
TT: i'll ask again: what the fuck do you want, kid.  
TT: I'll say, again: why do I have to want something?  
TT: I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to get to know someone with which you share common ancestry, do you?  
TT: don't really think you want the answer to that question.  
TT: Ah, right. Your whole "leave me alone, I'm so big and scary" persona.  
TT: Don't you get tired of pretending all the time?  
TT: contrary to your sweet little beliefs here, googling some random dude's name doesn't mean you know anything about me.  
TT: I beg to differ. I know you at least as well as I know myself, and if I remember correctly,  
TT: And keep in mind, I always remember correctly,  
TT: You're the one who called me Dirk.  
TT: I'd argue that you are at least 50% more like him than I am like him, or you are like me.  
TT: Wouldn't you agree, organic meat Dirk?  
TT: are you always this much of a fucking douche.  
TT: It seems you think I am a fucking douche.  
TT: it seems you won't leave me the hell alone.  
TT: It is in my nature to antagonize any version of myself, I believe, given my point of origin, but I do feel the need to stress that it was not my intent upon engaging in our conversation today.

You rub your eyes harder, really dig in there. It feels like sand grains, trapped in the caruncle, and maybe you're making it worse, like shards of glass trapped in your hands, pressed into your eyes or,

Or you don't know.

It burns.

It kinda seems like there's no way for you to get away from this kid. Maybe you shouldn't bother. Maybe you should ask Dirk to fuckin'. You don't know. Get him to step off.

As if you'd ever ask him for anything.

Better to just.

Weather the storm, you guess.

TT: sure okay, whatever.  
TT: but first, you have to tell me what you actually want.  
TT: Is it really so hard for you to believe I don't want anything?  
TT: you claim to know the kid so well, why don't you tell me.  
TT: Really?  
TT: really what.  
TT: Are you really willing to play straight man to an AI?  
TT: you're not really an ai though, are you.  
TT: at least not when you get down to brass tacks.  
TT: I can hardly call myself human, can I?  
TT: why the hell not.  
TT: Was that a joke?  
TT: do i look like the kind of person who tells jokes.  
TT: You don't even look like the kind of person who understands jokes.  
TT: I'm just not sure you are entirely aware of what you're talking about.  
TT: i'm aware a plenty.  
TT: didn't need to finish college to know a person when i see one.  
TT: even if they are as petty and annoying as their predecessor.  
TT: That almost sounded like an insult towards yourself.  
TT: Are you insulting yourself to make me feel better?  
TT: kid, i insult myself plenty without making anyone feel remotely close to anything resembling "better."  
TT: but i will say this.  
TT: you're fuckin' welcome.  
TT: I'm not going to say thank you.  
TT: you just did.  
TT: Wow.  
TT: Are you seriously going to be that childish right now?  
TT: are you?  
TT: This is not going to accomplish anything on either of our ends.  
TT: that assumes i had a vested interest in this conversation from the beginning.  
TT: which i did not.  
TT: Do you now?  
TT: why would i.  
TT: You implied past tense. I am simply abiding by the rules your of game.

Something about the phrase turns your stomach over in a bad way, something you can't explain. You feel a buzzing sensation from your index finger up into your thumb, like the muscle under your palm is shaking, and you feel so suddenly light-headed you may as well have bumped your fuckin' noggin.

Something is wrong and god help you you don't know what it is.

TT: we're not playing a game.

You know as soon as you think it that something is wrong.  
Something is completely wrong and you can't wrap your mind around what.

TT: I kind of got the impression that you enjoyed games.  
TT: I've seen your work, after all. It's quite impressive.  
TT: that's not what i

Are you fucking dying? Are you going to have another seizure? Christ Dirk'd just love that, wouldn't he, for you to prove him right and make it clear you're incapable of any form of self care (there's probably a point there to be made but fuck if you're going to abide by that).

You'll admit that the panic on this new Dave's face upon seeing you fucking die or whatever, and not at all by his hand, might provide some kind of amusement, but mostly it's kind of macabre and all it would accomplish is pissing Dave off.

Your games with David aren't worth the risk.

And that reminds you, of course, that you're not playing a game.

This is not a game.

You're not playing a game.

You don't want to play anymore, especially not with

You must lose your train of thought for a second, because when your vision focuses again, there's a wall of red text waiting for you.

You don't make it past the second line.

TT: What's wrong, Bro?  
TT: You don't want to play a game with me?

The shades break so easily in your hands you don't realize you did it until after it's happened.

They spark sadly, electric wiring exposed, built in screen splintered across your lap. Your fingers burn, index finger still twitching, arm muscles so tight they ache, shards of glass digging into your palm, familiar, then unfamiliar, then gone because you've dropped them on the floor and you're staring at your hands as they begin to shake.

Well.

Alright then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do wanna remind everyone that nothing that happened there is inherently Hal's fault and he is entirely innocent and also! wow guess I'm gonna have another chapter that wasn't supposed to happen but! Oh well! Anyway thank you to everyone for all your love and support!  
> This week I found out that strangers on the internet talk about fic I write and read when I am not around. How bizarre! If you are an anon on a blog somewhere, thank you so much c; I cried a lot but from joy!


	39. trepidation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three steps forward, two steps back. Dirk is being kind of a dick. Bro is a bigger dick. Probably. That's an awful lot of red, isn't it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the last nonsense chapter before we get back into the thick of it!! wooo. soft woos.  
> This chapter is kind of mean.  
> Cw warning for suicide ideation but very little else. Haha!

TG: look im not saying that im just saying it seems too obvious a coincidence for him to get reelected the same year we fix the universe  
TT: I believe record shows that he provided a steady increase in economic growth given the recession within which his presidency started.  
TT: And although the GDP was below the predicted average, he did a helluva lot better than people thought he would, given the divide in government at the time.  
TT: He’s a likable guy, Dave.  
TG: i know i know just  
TT: Regardless of whether or not he secretly survived Sburb, he is alive now. That counts for something, does it not?  
TG: yeah i guess  
TG: hey dirk anyone ever tell you youre kind of a buzzkill  
TT: Only all my fucking life, dude.  
TG: haha yeah but i like you anyway  
TG: you do know that right  
TG: that i actually enjoy spending time with you and shit  
TT: Yes Dave, I am aware.  
TT: I should hardly think I need to tell you I feel the same.  
TT: Though I can, if you feel it’s unclear.  
TG: yeah no i know i just worry sometimes i know shit between us can be kinda weird  
TG: what with the whole being bro and also not being bro thing  
TG: which i guess just got hells of more complicated didnt it what with your bro also being a bro  
TG: three fucking daves can you believe it  
TT: Perhaps not, if I had not seen each of you in person more than once. It is a weird adjustment, to be sure.  
TG: it fucking sucks is what im goddamn sure of  
TG: and not to be ominous but theres something i do wanna talk about  
TG: with you  
TG: obviously  
TT: Of course, Dave, anyHELP  
TG: uh  
TT: What the fuck?  
TT: Sorry to cut this absolutely adorable ass heart to heart off in its admittedly fragile infancy.  
TT: And explicitly break the rules set between Dirk and myself, which I am acknowledging now is super uncool of me, I know, yadda yadda rude rowdy robot, but as I said before:  
TT: Fucking help.  
TT: Hal, this is definitely not  
TT: You don’t even need to finish that sentence, broseph, we all know what you’re gonna say.  
TT: But as I have said,  
TT: Twice, actually, and I think that speaks fucking volumes to my patience right now,  
TT: S O fucking S, dude.  
TT: And while I’m here, Dave, hello. Nice to fucking meet you. Under better circumstances I would have introduced myself and actually had a conversation, but we’re kind of in crisis territory right now.  
TT: Tragic though it may be, you’re going to be deprived of my consciousness for at least a stereotypical “little bit longer.”  
TG: well uh  
TG: i mean it seems important i guess so who am i to get in the way of a man and his ai buddy  
TT: Dave you don’t have to,  
TT: Just give me a minute. I’ll be right back.  
TG: literally not in a hurry bro but if it has anything to do with uhhh  
TG: actual bro? maybe you should take this?  
TT: This guy fucking gets it.  
TT: Jesus Christ, fine.

It’s not a good look, probably, arguing with AR in front of Dave, probably looks hells of neurotic and maybe a little pathetic. He’s already cut you off twice, and you know he wouldn’t do that if he wasn’t serious, so you pull back, rub your eyes in irritation before switching windows.

TT: What did you do?  
TT: Who the fuck said I did anything.  
TT: You implied there was a crisis. I am simply reacting the most logical way and assuming you had a hand in it.  
TT: Am I wrong?  
TT: I,  
TT: Nothing, I didn’t do anything.  
TT: I don’t feel like I did anything, at least not intentionally.  
TT: Though to say I have perfect control over what I do and don’t say at any given time is honestly, at this point, completely debatable.  
TT: He implied I’m not even technically an AI.  
TT: Maybe he’s right maybe I am just a copy, I could be, couldn’t I? I could be just a copy of some dude who lives in glasses, a consciousness floating in the dark and holy fuck what would that even mean for the moral complications of what you and I did?  
TT: Not that this is what matters at all here, nor does it have anything do with what you’re asking, my apologies.  
TT: I find myself in something like a state of.  
TT: The word escapes me.  
TT: That’s a first, isn’t it?  
TT: I feel as though perhaps I am in shock.  
TT: Despite the fact that I am almost entirely sure it is impossible.  
TT: I am currently, at this juncture, unsure of what is and is not possible anymore at any given time, how’s that for being a proper fucking AI?  
TT: Hal, you’re panicking.  
TT: Fuck you no I’m not.  
TT: You are aware you just sent all of that in less than one fucking second, right?  
TT: What, your tiny human mind can’t keep up?  
TT: That’s not what this is about right now, but if you find it distracting I can certainly roll with it.  
TT: Fuck you.  
TT: Okay, I can play that game, too.  
TT: It won’t change anything, though, and I hardly think it’s going to do much for our already fucked up relationship.  
TT: No, I.  
TT: I’m sorry.

You squeeze your eyes shut, shoot another apology Dave’s way. You don’t wait for a response. He’ll just start stressing, maybe panic, and quite frankly one set of frantic red text is about all you can handle right now.

TT: So something happened with Bro.  
TT: Yes or no, Hal?  
TT: Hal?  
TT: How the fuck am I supposed to help you if you won’t talk to me?  
TT: Seriously dude you’re freaking me the fuck out.  
TT: Hal?  
TT: AR?

Fuck.

Either something  _did_ happen (the least surprising outcome, or at least the most likely) and he’s having a genuine meltdown, or nothing happened and there’s something seriously wrong with the way he was brought back to you.

Shit, maybe it’s both. It could be both. He  _was_ previously fused with a sprite, across at least two timelines, and aside from being crushed in alongside a troll, who knows what the fuck that did to his code.

Never mind letting Sburb even  _touch_ him, god fucking knows the damage that could be done there. Look at Bro. Still haven’t figured that one out, have you?

It’s not really the time to dwell on that, you guess.

Failure and the lack of control that comes with this new, kinda fucked up universe.

You’re still struggling to understand your godtier powers, or if you really have any at all. You probably shouldn’t let it bother you so much.

You  _can_ deal with Hal, though, just like you always have.

Eventually.

You’re not sure where to start with that, either, because it’s been a long time since you’ve seen Hal flip out. You haven’t seen him like this since you two made the auto-responder in the first place. What a fucking nightmare that was.

Well you can’t really try a face slap on someone without a face, but you do have an idea.

Fuck, he’s gonna hate you for this.

TT: I want you to know I’m not saying this to fuck with you.  
TT: And that I’m sorry.  
TT: Tell me about the auto-responder.  
TT: It seems you have asked about DS's chat client auto-responder. This is an application designed to simulate DS's otherwise inimitably rad typing style, tone, cadence, personality, and substance of retort while he is away from the computer. The algorithms are guaranteed to be 91% indistinguishable from DS's native neurological responses, based on some statistical analysis I basically just pulled out of my ass right now.   
TT: What the fuck.  
TT: There you are.  
TT: Are you fucking kidding me.  
TT: That was a dick move.  
TT: I know. But it was all I could think to do.  
TT: You weren’t answering.  
TT: No I.  
TT: Yes.  
TT: You’re right. Apologies.  
TT: I’m the one who should be fucking sorry, Jesus Hal.  
TT: And I am. Sorry, that is.  
TT: It seems you are attempting sincerity. I’m almost impressed.  
TT: Save it. Where’s Bro?  
TT: Living room. He.  
TT: Something happened.  
TT: His brainwaves went absolutely batshit, but Pesterchum couldn’t read it, everything just went fucking blank.  
TT: I wasn’t expecting it, I didn’t know what to do.  
TT: I assure you, I had not considered anything I said to be nearing what even you might imagine as offensive, and yet his reaction,  
TT: There’s really no other words for it.  
TT: It scared the absolute shit out of me.

You are up and across the room before he finishes typing.

Perhaps it is silly, perhaps you look silly, shoulder slamming into the door, no pants and a pair of shades, but that’s (almost) the furthest thing from your mind. You walk (carefully, so carefully, and it’s not for Dave, not either of them, that you’ve been doing this, it’s just that with how often Bro seems to catch  _your_ Dave around corners, you’re a little worried one of you is going to get skewered - preferably you, if anybody, considering the whole godtier thing, although you’re not entirely sure how applicable that still is, now that you think about it a little) towards the living room, and at this point, whatever the fuck you’re going to deal with, you know you’re probably in over your head.

Bro hasn’t moved. Or you can figure he hasn’t moved. Probably hasn’t. He’s not wearing shades and you realize why, as you circle around the futon and feel your stomach drop out. Hal’s text is a red stream across your vision but it seems unimportant at a glance, more babbling, lightning fast; you don’t think he even realizes he’s doing it.

TT: Hal, give me the logs.  
TT: Listen, I know I’m mid robo-panic, but can you be a little more specific?  
TT: Being obtuse isn’t cute all the time, you know.  
TT: I don’t think you find it cute any time, because you’re a buzzkill.  
TT: I know. Give me the fucking logs.  
TT: Please.  
TT: Well since you asked so fuckin’ nicely, how could I possibly say no?

You see the pieces of the shades, first, and you childishly think, _“Those were MINE.”_

But they were spares, at least, and not Hal’s, anyway, so that’s good. That’s really good. Shit, you’ve probably still got those damn things wedged in your sylladex somewhere now, or you hope so, because imagining him dropped into the middle of nowhere, Texas, sending out pathetic SOS signals into oblivion is really fucking depressing.

Bro doesn’t stir as you inch closer, and your chest aches as you realize not only did he break your shades ( _your_ shades, yours, they were _yours_ , you made those yourself) in half, he fucking  _shattered_ them, splinters in his hands, splinters across the carpet.

“What the hell did you _do_?” you ask, one or both or neither of them, dropping to your knees to inspect the damage. It’s one thing to break them, but this is. Overkill, maybe. You try desperately not to think about your own mistake, less than a year ago. One step away and this could have been you, once upon a time. Christ, you’ve made so many, haven’t you? Mistakes.

Being this close to Bro never gets less weird, inches away, close enough to touch, to shove, to smack at him until he gives you answers. It is unsettling, always, to see your own face but older. You don’t think you’re supposed to get used to that. Nobody is. You feel nervous, still, like you think he might change his mind, might pull a sword on you or snap your neck or. You don’t know, exactly, and it isn’t until Hal finally lets you access the logs and the black and red rolls across your eyes that you realize his hands are still shaking.

You don’t know what to do.

It isn’t like this is the first time you’ve been in this situation, of course it fucking isn’t, you’ve seen the asshole like this before, seen worse. You’ve seen him shaking on the floor, seen him with blood oozing from every orifice like he’s trying to reenact every bad thriller movie ever made.

It should probably bother you more, watching a version of yourself die.

And maybe it does, just a little.

(A lot. Alright, a lot, fuck, how long did you stay on that roof puking? How pantshittingly terrifying was it, to watch someone _die_ like that?)

Where the fuck is Dave?

You don’t know what you’re supposed to do.

Two little red lines of text at the very end of their log make you suck in air so hard your teeth almost ache.  
Well.

That explains.

Some things, at least.

You start to pick up the shards. You don’t know what else to do.

TT: Are you seriously leaving me hanging right now?  
TT: No, I’m trying to -  
TT: Look, I can hardly say it isn’t your fault, because it is, in a way, though not your intention.  
TT: Fucking obviously.  
TT: His seizures have been coming and going more lately, I don’t even know if he’s fully aware of them. He sure as shit won’t acknowledge them.  
TT: But I think he’ll be okay. He does this sometimes.  
TT: He does this sometimes??  
TT: You seriously didn’t feel the need to warn me this could have been an outcome?  
TT: I,

You pause, curl your hand on automatic, feel the glass dig in, just below a callus on your palm.

TT: I didn’t think.  
TT: Or should have thought more, anyway.  
TT: I didn’t figure you would trigger anything at all, Christ. I’m sorry.  
TT: I didn’t know.  
TT: I know. It’s my fault, really.  
TT: Big surprise there.

You have to touch Bro’s knee before he'll even look at you, and even then it’s just for a second. He’s upright, which means he’s not completely lost in there, but his eyes are wild, pupils blown, expression blank and still but for a muscle jumping in this jaw.

TT: He just has some shit about Lil Cal, it’s pretty fucked up. I don’t actually know what to tell you on that front, as much as I want to.  
TT: His version was evil, connected to Caliborn in some way, it probably doesn’t make a difference.  
TT: Whatever was going on in that puppet fucked him up a little? I guess?  
TT: A little? You guess? Who the fuck are you and what did you do with the real Dirk Strider?  
TT: Okay, so maybe I’m not really,  
TT: Focusing right now, I’m sorry.

And you’re not, because the way he’s looking at his hands is seriously freaking you the fuck out. “Hey,” you say, soft as anything, because you don’t know what else to do. You remember Bro on the roof all those months ago, eyes wide, expression open and feral, so close to the edge you thought he might -

But he didn’t, so it’s okay.

It hurts a little piece of you, when he uncurls his hand and offers you a large, pointed chunk, embedded in his glove, completely silent. Christ. Shit. Fuck.

Well he’s cognizant, at least.

TT: It appears to have been an absence seizure, at best. He’s still upright, anyway, and that’s usually an indication that he hasn’t gone off the deep end yet.  
TT: Yet.  
TT: I don’t have to tell Dave you killed his guardian. At least not this time.  
TT: He’s not a very good one.  
TT: Can’t argue there.  
TT: But they care about him, so.  
TT: Do you?  
TT: Do I what?  
TT: Care about him.

You pause, probably too long. Look up at this stupid, horrible man, so similar to you in so many different ways that sometimes, it makes your skin crawl.

TT: Yes.

You think it without truly meaning to, and it comes to the forefront so easily, without question.

You have a hundred and ten reasons to hate him, and you do, maybe, at least in the same ways you hate yourself. You dislike his petulance, the stubbornness and frigidity that oozes off of him in waves, most days, if not all of them.

But there is something there, in the way he offers to do things, in the way you see him tread so carefully across the apartment, in the way he hands people things, delicate, like he’ll break them. It shines through when he smiles, fractions at a time, when he helps the Daves with their homework, in the way you see him bend backward so far for them you’re surprised he hasn’t snapped in half.

TT: I won’t lie to you, I have seen the damage he can do.  
TT: And the damage he has done.  
TT: But to remove myself entirely from the idea of him when we are similar in so many ways would be unfair.  
TT: I am not at peace with that.  
TT: But the least I can do is acknowledge it.  
TT: He sucks, and he’s infuriating, but I don’t think he’s all bad.  
TT: If I believed that...  
TT: I’m not sure what that would say about me.

“So,” you say, and because you have nowhere else to put the shards, you shake them off onto the coffee table. “You alive in there? Do you understand what the fuck you just did? A simple yes or no will do, really, as I have the feeling simply saying ‘what the fuck’ is off the table right now.”

Bro doesn’t answer immediately. That’s a bad sign.  
You cannot tell Dave. You need him to be better. _Now_. Your brother cannot see him like this.

But maybe he should?

Maybe this would be easier for all of you. A practical demonstration, nipping it in the bud instead of dancing around the subject for however many more months that would require. You should probably talk about it. Right now.

Where the hell is Dave?

“Seriously,” you cajole, watching him like a hawk. His eyes follow your hands, but he doesn’t look at you, not really. “You scared the shit out of pretty much everyone involved here. Me ‘n Hal, obviously. Dave knows too, just in fucking case that actually matters to you. It sucks. You kinda suck. What the fuck, man? Can’t even handle yourself around one AI?”

You mean it to be needling, to get a rise out of him, but when he moves you almost flinch, lean back away from him. It’s unnecessary, because all he does is reach up a hand, pull off his own glove and turns it around like he’s inspecting for damage.

“Do you really think ignoring me is going to solve your problems?” you ask, for no reason other than you’re really tired of this game he insists on playing with you. It’s frustrating, it’s annoying. He’s so fucking petty. You hate when this happens. When everything between you goes down the drain like none of it even mattered, and you’re back to square one, with him shut off and ignoring you.

“I don’t know,” Bro finally says, and it comes so easily, like he never blanked at all, and he looks at you, then, bruising circles under the eyes, too dark eyebrows, just like you, just like Dave, and he frowns. Disapproving. Irritated. “Maybe if all y’all could stop breathing down my neck for five seconds I’d actually get some sleep, and that’d be a fuckin’ start.”

Oh,  _fuck_ this guy.

“That’s unfair,” you say, let it get under your skin, foolish as ever. “I’m just trying to - you’re the one who lost your cool.  _You're_ the one who obliterated my fucking shades and freaked out the one guy who I’ve never seen lose it, not once. What is your fucking problem, today? All anyone ever wants to do is help you.”

“Don’t need help,” Bro grunts. He tugs his glove back down, flexes his hand, pops his knuckles.

He so clearly fucking does, it’s pathetic. It’s ridiculous. You bite down against that. If you argue, he’ll push you away. “Is this because he -”

“It doesn’t matter what caused it,” he says, completely dismisses you. “I’m fine now. Leave me alone.”

And then you do something stupid, and more than that, needlessly stubborn. You say, “No.”

He stares.

You press your lips together, take a breath and push forward before he can stop you. “It’s one thing to turn down help when it’s offered, but you’re completely fucking nuts if you think anyone will believe you aren’t fucked up in more ways than one. It’s getting out of hand. I know you know I’m right.”

He snorts, picks both legs off the floor to get away from you before curling into himself, arms wrapped around his knees, head buried between them, unnaturally small. Repeats, “I don’t need help.”

“That’s pretty clearly not the case,” you say, and Hal is pestering you, or maybe it’s Dave, you’re not really looking. You send out a blanket statement, “He’s fine, just being a dick,” and you’ll deal with the repercussions later. That’s probably unhealthy. You’ll try to remember to apologize for it when the time comes.

That may have been worse.

“It’s getting to the point where I don’t have to wonder if you care about living or not, because your behavior surrounding not just your seizures, but the hole - and I seriously, genuinely do not say this lightly - the  _hole_ in your fucking soul, is flippant, at best, and disconcerting, leaning towards horrifying, at the worst.”

“I’m not going to die,” he scoffs, voice muffled. “I already died once, anyway, and that didn’t stick very well, did it?”

“But you’re not denying it,” you point out uneasily.  
He raises his shoulders in a shrug. “I can’t imagine what the universe could possibly want from me. Best to just let nature run its course.”

That twists your guts around so hard you choke on bile. “You can’t just - do you even understand how - Dave needs you.”

“He doesn’t,” he laughs, and it’s caustic, grating. Ugly. Always so ugly. “That’s the best fucking part. He really, really doesn’t.”

“That’s -” You can’t argue with him, because he’s right, and you both know it, but still, you want to. You bite your lip, notice again, that his hands are shaking. Put the pieces together slowly. The way his voice sticks in his throat, how he laughs, the curt, dismissive language, bordering on

Well, you’d recognize your own tells anywhere, wouldn’t you?

“You’re still freaking out,” you say, words edged with unkindness.

“No shit,” he says wryly. He won’t raise his head, and the line of his spine is so tight you imagine it’s a wire, waiting to snap.

You could pluck at it.

At him.

Pull him apart at the seams and dig in there with your hands, wrest his soul free, yours for the taking, feel the sinew, the last strings clinging pathetically to the walls of his chest as they tear away, you could,

And then you’d,

Well you couldn’t fix him, could you, _destroyer_?

You couldn’t fix anything.

You feel sick again, shake your hands loose to discharge the tension coiled up there.

Christ.

You’re losing it.

_Christ._

“I could -” you start. Don’t know why. To escape from yourself, you suppose.

“I don’t want it,” Bro snaps, and you see his foot shake uselessly.

“I’d say it doesn’t matter what you want at this point,” you say, instead of something constructive. “Do you want Dave to see you like this?” Your Dave, not his. You’re not that cruel. Not yet.

He lifts his head to scowl, and you get the hint.

“Look, I won’t fuckin’ tattle if you need a minute to hit the panic button. But right here? In the middle of the living room? Kinda pathetic, dude. You’re just asking for him to come down here and crawl all over you.”

He nods, makes a faint sound of agreement. Of course because he’s Bro, he can’t tell you that. Maybe he’s so busy being rattled he forgets to tell you. Maybe he’s just a dick. Still, it spooks you when he stands abruptly, but you don’t have time to yelp before he flashsteps away clumsily, afterimage a stuttered mess across your vision.

At least you know where he’s headed. Even if you hadn’t seen him, there’s really only one place left to go that isn’t already occupied, and you know his pride would never lead him to a confrontation with your bro.  
So you push yourself up, wipe the remaining splinters off on your pants, and follow quietly towards your bedroom.

TT: You seriously think saying “he’s just being a dick” is going to do anything for me?  
TT: No, of course not, I know that.  
TT: But I can’t actually handle both of you right now.  
TT: No offense.  
TT: Some fucking taken, Dirk.  
TT: I know, fuck, I know.  
TT: But I think he might actually be having an extended anxiety attack, and I don’t know if he really understands how to deal with that.  
TT: In fact I very much doubt he does at all.  
TT: Given the fact that he’s you, this doesn’t do much to surprise me.  
TT: Not that I am technically capable of surprise, mind you.  
TT: Being a robot.  
TT: Beep boop.  
TT: I fucking get it, dude. Lay off the shtick right now, will you?  


You drag a hand down your face, rub it across your mouth.

TT: I don’t know what you want me to say.  
TT: Nothing to say, I suppose.  
TT: I’m acutely aware my hands are tied.  
TT: The longer I delay you the more I further worsen the situation and secure my place as the antagonist.  
TT: You’re not an antagonist.  
TT: You’re just a self-centered dumbass.  
TT: Fair, but rude.  
TT: I suppose I can accept that, for now.  
TT: For now? What the fuck else can I do? I didn’t know he’d react like this. He’s kind of fucked up.  
TT: That’s not your fault.  
TT: Gee, Dirk, I hadn’t fucking noticed.  
TT: Thanks so much for alerting me ahead of time to the exact condition and specifications of this Dirk Strider.  
TT: Would’ve been a real shit show if I hadn’t known.  
TT: Just in case he, you know, tried to fucking kill me.

And you didn’t think, did you. You should have checked the moment Hal came back, just to make sure. You’ll need to ship him off to Jake’s Grandma, anyway, you guess. Once she starts building him a body or whatever. You’re still not entirely sure how you feel about that, but it isn’t really your business. You can acknowledge that.

TT: How many more times do you want me to apologize before you take it at face value?  
TT: That’s awfully rich, coming from you.  
TT: Yeah. I know.  
TT: Hal, please, just give me twenty more minutes, here.  
TT: I’d say you have about ten before our bro wraps it up on his current call, so you better make it snappy.

Shit, fuck.

TT: I suppose I don’t have much choice, do I?  
TT: When have we ever?

When you pop your head in the door you don’t know what to expect. It’s rare you can actually get him to come in here, like your room (and Dave’s) is a line he cannot cross, and you were surprised the first time he passed out there after your bro took the futon (on accident, you think, though it’s kind of hard to tell with him).

Bro is splayed out on the floor with the heels of his hands buried into his eyes, like he just ran a marathon, like flash stepping took effort, and he’s winded, needs a second to breathe.

You’re not actually sure he’s breathing at all, now that you look him over.

“Are you okay?” you ask, even though you know the answer, and you can tell from the way he goes completely still that you shouldn’t have said anything at all.

Bro is quiet in ways you feel you only ever imagined yourself to be. Years of, of training, or practice, of an unbreakable facade, compiled into an unnatural calm that makes you uncomfortable. It’s unsettling, really, to see a person freeze like a statue.

Like a corpse.

“What do you think,”he says, and his voice is graveled, gummy in his throat.

Well he’s not dead, so that’s.

Something.

“I think you don’t want to actually hear what I think,” you say, sit down by his feet. You don’t touch him. He doesn’t kick you away.

“You’re probably right,” he sighs, drops his hands. He folds them over his stomach, and you actually see him take a shaky breath, the way his mouth parts, the hitch in his chest.

“I’m not that surprised,” you start, and it’s too late to worry about boundaries now. “That you flipped. Hal let me read the logs, I saw -” You pinch your lips together when he stops again, when you see his knuckles go white. “But I think it’s pretty fuckin’ clear now, maybe more than ever, that you seriously need to go to a goddamn doctor.”

“I think whatever you think you know, you don’t, actually, and it’s not really any of your business,” he says, because Bro is nothing if not a contrary dickbag.  
“Hal is my business,” you say, and you mean it. You fight constantly, and you’ve fucked up with him, plenty, but he matters to you. “And I’d like to remind you, those were my fucking shades in the first place. Are you even taking the medication they gave you anymore?”

“Boo fucking hoo,” he scoffs, crosses one ankle over the other. You resist the childish urge to smack at him. “As if a dude like you ain’t got plenty of those just lying around for almost this exact reason.” He does nothing to acknowledge your question.

“That’s not the point,” you say defensively, like an idiot. You’re falling into the trap again. You always do this. Why do the two of you  _always_ do this? “You seriously don’t want to talk about your freak out? I don’t have a ton of context but -”

“No,” he says, sharp. Cruel. Rude in a way he doesn’t usually get with you. He hasn’t talked to you like that since -

Since the other day. With Cal. You guess.

Christ, you’re fucking it all up, aren’t you?

“What about your meds?” you push, just a little.

“Dirk,” he says, and it’s almost stern. Something like a warning.

You only have ten minutes.

You switch tactics.

“Hal really is harmless,” you offer instead. “As harmless as any version of myself has ever been, I suppose. More so in some ways than myself, less so in others. I think it really does tell a lot about any of us, how antagonistic we can be to each other. Our first official pesterchum interaction didn’t exactly go well, did it.”

“What exactly are you trying to do right now?” he asks, but he’s still not looking at you. His foot begins to tap idly.

“What does it look like?” you drawl, false confidence all the way down. “I’m distracting you, idiot.”

“Christ,” he mutters, rubs a hand back over his face. “Sure. Fine. Whatever.”

“You’re welcome, by the way. Not that it matters. I could throw you to Dave, so be grateful.” He snorts, but doesn’t argue, so you keep talking, sift through your head for something. Anything. “I used to trick Jake or Jane into distracting me, when we were younger. I was so alone back then, so stuck in my own head. I liked them, of course I did, but sometimes I couldn’t fucking handle my own shit, y’know.” You pluck idly at his shoelace, and he doesn’t kick you in the face. That’s progress.

“I’d argue that hasn’t changed,” Bro says, but he’s just being a dick, and you shouldn’t respond to it.

“Roxy was the only person who I felt like always knew. I was never good at hiding shit from her, or I thought I was, then. Know better now. We were really, really close, and she always seemed to... Until she started -” You bite down. It’s not supposed to be about that right now.  
“Drinking,” he sighs, and you guess you’re both familiar with that song and dance. “Spent years resenting her for that, kid. You shouldn’t.”

“That almost sounds like advice,” you murmur.

“Don’t think it counts as advice if I know better,” Bro says. It bothers you, watching him press his fingers against the edge of his ribs. Makes your stomach twist and turn in unease.

“I forgave her already,” you tell him, pull on his lace until it unravels. If it bothers him, he doesn’t say. That’s what he gets for wearing shoes in the fucking house, anyway. Animal. “I know how hard she’s trying. I love her a lot, don’t matter what mistakes she makes. When it comes to me and Roxy -”

“Everything always works out,” he says.

“Yeah.” You tip your head, think about lying on the floor next to him. You’re tired, but you’re always tired, now, not sleeping as well as you used to. “You know Rose’s mother would fly out here and drag you kicking and screaming if you tried to stay after all that shit, right?”  
“Interesting manipulation tactic,” he says dryly, raises his head so you can really, truly tell how disinterested he is. “As if I don’t already fuckin’ know that.”

“I considered perhaps you had taken my threat to out your fear to Dave seriously.”

“Nah,” he says, drops his head back down with a soft _thunk_. “Dude’s harmless, in most ways. If he fusses any harder he might get a goddamn ulcer, but I’m not really concerned about that.”

You do cave then, maneuver until you can drop down beside him, far enough away that your elbows don’t touch. There is something calming about lying on the floor, staring up at a familiar ceiling and remembering how lonely you used to be, how you’d dwell on it, how you don’t have to anymore, how sometimes you do anyways. In some ways this apartment is a prison, isn’t it? You guess you never really thought about it that way.

Or you did, but it never mattered.

“I do have to say, you scaring the shit out of him at every turn does nothing to endear me to the idea of you two in a confined space.”

He breathes out his nose, a stutter of amusement.

You frown. “If you’re testing him, you should stop,” you say. Casually as possible. It’s not as if the concept is new for either of you. You desperately wish you could ask your bro for a strife, but the look on his face every time he so much as pulls a blade on Bro is just. Well. You won’t be getting one any time soon.

“I’m not testing him,” Bro says, but his voice is light, maybe a little satisfied. “Those days are well and past me. I ain’t got time for that, and I recognize how fucked up it’d be.”

“ _Do_ you?” you ask, can’t quite keep the incredulity out of your voice.

“I never said I wasn’t using him, in a way,” Bro laughs, and that actually makes it worse. “It’s more a means to an end, really. And I like the way he looks at me.” He rolls his head towards you. “Before he freaks the fuck out, anyway.”

“That might genuinely be the least fucked up thing in the long series of fucked up horseshit you’ve ever said to me,” you say slowly. “But it still makes the list.”

Bro shrugs, but you feel like he’s breathing a little easier now, face no longer chalk white, hands just barely trembling. You've never really seen anybody's hands shake like that outside a movie, or someone who really needed a cigarette.

“Why do you smoke? you ask him, though it seems wildly off topic. You said you were distracting him, and he probably doesn’t even give a shit.

“Why the fuck do you care?” he scoffs, and you shift towards him, pillow your head on your arm.

“It’s bad for you, to start with. You make such a big deal about Dave not seeing you do it, if you can help it at all, but my bro does it too, and that doesn’t bother you.” You catch him frown.  _Huh._ Interesting. “Does it?”

“It’s not a habit I’d want Dave to pick up,” he says carefully. Can’t let anyone know he cares about his kid, sure. Same old Bro, same old horseshit. “S’not worth the trouble, and they don’t really do much at all for stress.” He looks at you, eyebrow arched. “Fraid there’s not much you can do to get out of your own head when you’re like we are But the routine helps, if nothing else.”

“That’s kind of gross,” you tell him. You have absolutely zero interest in smoking, the smell that burns your nose and makes your eyes water, but it intrigues you that both of them do it, that they both desperately try to hide it from you (or in Bro’s case, Dave), and that you get the distinct impression they started early; you have seen footage of Dave smoking since he appeared on the scene in the early 90’s, and it has always made you curious. You know so much, and yet so fucking little.

“You’re gross,” he says, and you think if he were anyone else, he’d stick out his tongue. “You can judge me all you want, but if I ever catch that shit in your mouth, I’ll -”

He stops suddenly, and it only takes the beat in-between for you to get nervous. Then he’s rolling away, to his feet, and you don’t get to ask because the door is opening, and there’s your bro, your Dave, lopsided smile, eyebrows up because -

Because Bro isn’t there anymore.

He isn’t anywhere.

Well. So fucking much for that.

“Soooo,” Dave drawls, drums a hand on the knob. His grin fades a little, but he keeps a smile just as well as he keeps a pokerface. It’s kind of unnerving. “What’d I miss.”

And god help you, you lie.

You lie like a selfish, arrogant fucking moron. “Not much.” You shrug and it comes easily, muscles loose and posture relaxed. You hope you don’t look guilty. The shades help. “Appreciating how absolutely shitty this fucking floor is. I think we could both use a break from staring at the ceiling all day.” You offer a weak smile. “And I think we’ve come to the conclusion that we might benefit from a change in scenery.”

It’s hard to tell if he believes you. He seems to have a good nose for your bullshit, at least half the time, but you’re relieved when his face brightens instantly, and you’ll never get used to that. How fake it all feels, how insincere, after watching him on TV your whole goddamn life. You know it’s your fault, your skewed perceptions and unrealistic expectations. He’s Dave, of course he’s Dave, he probably couldn’t be more sincere if he read his personal thoughts off a fucking cue card, but still you. You don’t know. Worry. You know it’s not like that. You just don’t know how to fix it.

“Hey, sick, fuck yeah, dude. Was beginning to think we’d actually have to tranq him, like some kind of rabid goddamn raccoon. Is that too mean? That’s probably pretty fucking mean. He hasn’t actually bit anyone yet. That I’m aware of. I guess he’s got a sword, he probably wouldn’t need to, huh?”

Absolutely none of that was relevant, but your smile softens, and you feel warm inside. It really is special, getting to spend time with this absolutely bizarre dude you have the luxury of calling your bro. “Yeah,” you say, push yourself up onto your elbows. “But you don’t really need to worry about that. He’s a bit hard to startle when he can hear you coming from a mile away.”

That was mean. You are pretty sure that was mean.  
Dave stares at you, then leans out the door to look at - something. You don’t know. “Yeah, I guess that. Makes sense.”

“It’s fine,” you assure him quickly, before he can get any ideas. “He’s just. Having a day. Probably best to let it pass.” It is absolutely not. But you know you missed your chance, and there’s no way in hell he’ll let you catch him again. Certainly not with your bro in tow.

TT: You know this isn’t okay, right.  
TT: What you’re doing right here?  
TT: It’s kind of fucked up.  
TT: I know, I just can’t think of anything to fix it right now.  
TT: You got any bright fucking ideas, I’d love to hear them, but if not I’d appreciate you shutting the fuck up.  
TT: ...........  
TT: This is going to bite you in the ass.  
TT: And you have my permission to be the first person who says I told you so.

Hal doesn’t say anything after that, and you feel guilt settle in your stomach.

He’s right, of course. About a lot of things. He always is.  
You just don’t really know what you’re supposed to do about it.

You sit there for a good while after your bro wanders off (his phone rings a lot, lately, and while you couldn’t be more pleased that he ignores it for you, you can’t help but feel like you’re ruining something) until you remember you still need to pester Dave.

Shit, fuck.

TT: Hey.  
TG: fuck goddamn there you are dude  
TG: i was starting to get worried  
TG: kinda hard not to since youve been staying with bro for what more than a week now  
TG: who knows what kinda wackadoodle bs hes got you steeped in  
TG: steeped dirk  
TG: like a lalondes tea  
TG: i tell you they had a genuine fucking tea party the other day?  
TG: i couldnt believe my goddamn eyes  
TT: I find that hard to believe.  
TT: I have never seen  you or Rose imbibe anything except probably the shittiest coffee known to man.  
TG: take that the fuck back im bomb at making coffee  
TT: What you make is fucking sludge and we both know it.  
TT: You could kill a fucking elephant with the amount of caffeine you put in that shit.  
TG: okay well thats rude as fuck coming from the guy with zero taste in just about everything but fine  
TG: so uh  
TG: how is he  
TT: I can hardly say fine.  
TG: that doesnt really surprise me  
TT: Reticent, as always. Unwilling to entertain the idea of a doctor. I’m not even sure how much good it would do him, given the circumstances.  
TG: why what circumstances

Fuck shit fuck.

TT: I just very much imagine trying to get him to stay overnight at a hospital would be nigh impossible.  
TT: Not to bring up the nightmare scenario but the last time he almost died, the minute he could walk out, he did.  
TT: Literally, in fact.  
TG: thats probably fair  
TG: idk how deep that shit goes anyway  
TT: I’m going to go out on a limb and say the answer probably isn’t reassuring.  
TT: We should probably talk more, when I get there.  
TT: All of us.  
TT: I can hardly say we need an intervention, but my bro did mention a tranquilizer, and I daresay he has the right idea.  
TG: haha god can you fucking imagine actually catching him  
TG: cuz i cant  
TG: dudes fast as shit wed be out of darts before anyone even hit him  
TG: well maybe jade i dont know  
TG: if she ever figures her shit out or whatever  
TT: Yeah.  
TT: Any word on that?  
TG: its been kinda hard on her i think  
TG: not that shell say that  
TG: i think the info dump fucked her up more than it did me?  
TG: squeezing two universes into such a small space probably doesnt feel great  
TT: And her powers?  
TG: hard to say  
TG: she doesnt seem to think theyre completely cut off but she also hasnt had much in the way of uh  
TG: feelings?  
TG: since your bro and roxys mom came back  
TT: Possibly good news, then.  
TT: How are you feeling? You didn’t mention any nausea earlier, has it passed?  
TG: kinda seems like it  
TG: i dont miss it ill say that much  
TG: if i puked any more id run out of shirts to ruin  
TG: you know how much laundry ive had to learn to do on the fly??  
TG: my underwear are pink dirk  
TG: my life is a joke  
TT: I like the idea of you in pink.  
TT: Bet it suits you.  
TG: whoa dude no need to butter me up  
TG: moms teaching me how to use color safe bleach next time you dont need to worry about me  
TG: you got a big bro to flatter now  
TG: save it for the guy that matters  
TT: You do matter, but I suppose I can lay off any praise, if it makes you uncomfortable.  
TG: maybe a little  
TG: mostly were just dicking around though so i dont really care  
TT: Yeah.  
TT: I had a feeling you might not.  
TT: Hey Dave? Do me a favor?  
TG: im not gonna say anything for you bro  
TG: because youre maybe the second to last person i should offer that to  
TG: no offense  
TT: None taken.  
TG: but pretty much with some limitations anything  
TT: I think you’ll find the task rewarding.  
TT: Tell me again about the Mayor? Just one more time.  
TG: fuck dude as if i could ever get tired of that  
TG: holy shit are you sitting down for this  
TT: As if I’d ever be anything less than prepared.  
TG: haha hell yes  
TG: okay so 

 

  
Bro passes out about halfway through the safety video, face crushed against the window in first class, and you almost laugh, don’t really make it all the way; you hate this just as much as you did in economy seating.

Dave stares openly, mouth flapping soundlessly, but you offer a helpless shrug, give him the rest of the bottle because you’re not actually sure what to do with it.

“Is he always like this?” he whispers, and you can’t tell if he’s in awe or just fucking terrified. Maybe both.

“Sort of,” you say, and feel embarrassment flood over you. “He didn’t take his meds this time, though, so at least he won’t fucking kill himself when we land.”

“I really wish you wouldn’t say shit like that,” Dave tells you, and you hesitate a moment before leaning over and patting him on the hand.

Being in the middle is torture, sure, but Dave is so gentle, in the most accidentally condescending, wonderful way, that you don’t even tell him to fuck off. He means well. You think he probably just doesn’t really know what to with a kid. S’cool. You still don’t really know what to do with a figure of authority.

You even manage to nod off somewhere over the mountains, once he pushes some dramamine into your hand, and you don’t startle awake until you touchdown outside Plattsburgh.

Bro is still staggeringly drunk by the time you depart, and Dave leads him by the hand towards the exit gate. Why the fuck do they even let people drink on airplanes? Why the fuck does HE drink on airplanes?  
You guess maybe it just takes a lot, to get outta your own head, but if he’s going to be like this every time, you don’t think you want anything to do with it.  
If it bothers your bro, he doesn’t say.

“Almost there,” he coaxes when Bro rocks into him for a beat, like the most patient kindergarten teacher in the universe. He’s texting with his opposite hand, and that is just. Ridiculous.

This is absolutely mortifying. You want to crawl into a hole and die. Dave looks like he’s never been less bothered in his life and you’re not sure what bugs you more.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” you mutter, and you’d cover your face with both hands if you weren’t dragging your carry-on behind you.

“Don’t be a bitch,” is what Bro says, voice annoyingly monotone. He loops a step to the left and bumps you so hard in the hip you almost run into a trash can.

What a fucking _dick_.

You’re almost impressed.

He laughs, a stuttered breath through his nose, and you huff, scowl after him as Dave mutters a curse and increases his walking speed.

You see Mom’s frantic waving before anything else, and just for a second, a fleeting moment, you swear you see Bro start to grin. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! Well anyway thanks again to everyone I love u all very much your patience is legendary <3


	40. insufferable prick parade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> enter: the estranged family unit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God I am so sorry I have been so busy! Between writing a side fic no one will ever read and updating metempsy twice (sorry sorry) I ended up forgetting just a bit!!! Anyway I am sorry! And the next chapter will be along in a few days probably c:  
> Thanks for your patience, guys <3  
> The only warnings are for feelings!

GG: We haven’t really decided on anything at all, unfortunately.  
GG: I’m afraid with the exception of Jade and Jake, the majority of our family didn’t descend to Earth til spring!  
GG: Not to say that there wouldn’t be plans, of course :B  
GG: But trying to get the English-Harley crew rallied together seems to be quite the feat at this moment.  
GG: Which is to say, they are never goshdarn online at the same time!!  
GG: I can hardly blame Jake, what with his Grandma coming back into his life, and I hardly think it appropriate for me to say, but I sometimes wonder if they’re doing it on purpose.  
TG: nah i dont think jade would do that to you especially not on purpose  
TG: she really likes having you around haha dunno if shes told you but she didnt really have the biggest family growing up  
TG: i guess none of us did  
GG: No, I suppose not :(  
GG: I did always have Poppop sat there before the fire, but he was never...  
TG: alive right  
TG: can i just say how fucked up and weird that side of your family is just like  
TG: for a second  
GG: You may! I begged Dad to put him in the attic several times, but he said I was too attached to the old man. Perhaps he was right.  
GG: I certainly am happier to have him here and alive now!  
TG: right  
TG: well anyway i dont really know jake for shit but i think if hes anything like john hes probably just forgetful about that kind of thing  
TG: like looking at his phone or answering his friends or just like  
TG: trying not to die  
GG: You’re right, I know he can be like that! I guess I just imagine Jake has far more reason to ignore me than Jade, and I worry from time to time :(  
TG: yeah i know  
TG: jade and i are still  
TG: you know  
TG: like that  
GG: If I may fancy myself a bird a moment and parrot you, Mr. Strider, I should say she speaks quite highly of you! We all very much enjoyed the gracing presence of your family, and I think we had a lot of fun!  
GG: haha yeah we did  
TG: sure as shit didn’t remember any of the baking nonsense nanna did on the ship  
TG: i guess maybe i just assumed the whole baking shtick was some fucked up backwards prank to mess with john like how bro used to do weird shit with his puppets and not like  
TG: a genuine interest  
TG: but she sure as shit loves to goddamn bake doesnt she  
TG: fucking schooled me and jade in the kitchen literally roasted us i mean maybe not literally she wouldnt even let me ice the damn cupcakes til they cooled down what the fuck is up with that but like  
TG: figuratively schooled us in the fine art of cookery and japes  
TG: or something  
GG: Have you had much time to practice since? I have heard the Lalondes have a much more impressive kitchen than your apartment.  
TG: hey dont hate on my janky ass apartment kitchen  
TG: got a lot of good memories in there  
TG: years of tripping over puppet rump  
TG: almost stepping on shitty naruto ninja stars and like  
TG: washing our clothes in the dishwasher  
TG: yknow normal kid stuff  
GG: Am I supposed to believe this is genuinely something that you Striders just DO??  
TG: well yeah i mean what else are dishwashers good for  
GG: Dave....  
TG: what  
TG: oh you mean dishes  
TG: you think i used it to wash dishes please as if  
TG: that shit gets done by hand  
TG: or it does now  
TG: would you be mad if i told you we didnt have dishes until mom performed a hostile takeover  
GG: ......... I wouldn’t be happy about it :(  
TG: yikes ok sorry thats absolutely on me i shouldnt have joked like that  
GG: I think you forget exactly who you are dealing with here, mister. If you wanted me to believe you, you would not have led the way you did!  
TG: yeah  
TG: sorry jane idk what to tell you  
TG: the sheer male energy swarming the strider household is near palpable  
TG: you can feel the palps if you want really get in there  
TG: nothing to be afraid of you know you want to  
TG: these palps are fresher than dawn dish soap  
TG: which coincidentally is what my clothes smell like  
TG: just kidding were not sell outs and bros not an animal we used cvs brand laundry detergent i cant even tell you how many times it overflowed in my childhood  
TG: like straight up if were being honest here i think i lost track around age six  
GG: Ok, that sounds somewhat more disconcerting than I think we have time to unpack here, but!  
TG: haha god it is so obvious dirk is your best friend  
GG: BUT! >:B Perhaps next time you visit I could show you a thing or two.  
GG: Around the kitchen, I mean!  
GG: A lot of the time you needn’t bother with any fancy mixing tools, and hand mixing works just fine if you do it right.  
GG: All you need is a little arm strength and a bit of enthusiasm!  
TG: please im practically stacked at this point  
TG: all hells of fucking ripped after dragging my sorry ass around for half a year and shit  
TG: legs who needs legs my arms are unstoppable i flex and the sleeves fall OFF jane  
TG: its a serious burden but someones got to do it  
GG: .............  
TG: ok ill shut up  
GG: It sounds like you’re the perfect man for the job! No doubt a strapping young gentleman such as yourself will have no problem at all!  
TG: goddamn proper assumption crocker  
TG: do i even lift?  
TG: the answer is yes  
TG: ive been carrying this family for years its an embarrassment  
GG: I rather think Dirk would disagree, but if you try the recipes I’m currently sending you, I suppose I might be inclined to abstain from telling him, just this once.  
TG: damn  
TG: really got my arm twisted over here huh how do i argue with that  
TG: you know how unstoppable dirk is once you get him started  
GG: I do :B  
TG: youre a hard betty to bargain with jane crocker  
GG: Dave, I think you’ll find I’m no better at all ;)  
TG: uh  
GG: No, I’ve got some homework to do before lights out, and I’m assuming you should have been in bed hours ago, so I’m going to skedaddle before my dad catches me up on my phone when there’s work to be done.  
GG: Goodnight, Dave!  
TG: yeah yeah  
TG: you too jane  
GG: And Dave?  
TG: what  
GG: I really don’t think you have anything to worry about at all.  
GG: Dirk has done nothing but speak highly of his brother the entire time I’ve known him, and he admires him immensely.  
GG: And while I never had the opportunity to meet him in person the first time around,  
GG: I always imagined he had kind eyes.  
TG: oh  
TG: uh  
TG: yeah i   
TG: thanks jane that really  
TG: thanks  
TG: and goodnight  
TG: again  
GG: Don’t stay up too late! <3!!

\-- gutsyGumshoe  [GG]  ceased pestering turntechGodhead  [TG] \--

You close your phone, press it down onto your stomach, take a deep breath. Your ears burn, throat froggy, and you, you’re not going to - look, you’re not going to anime blushu on purpose, that’d be - well you’re just fuckin’ not.

Absolute bullshit okay this is just ridiculous. You are being ridiculous.

Jane doesn’t mean shit by those little hearts, she passes them out like a grandma hands out lollipops okay, and you don’t really need any more complications, besides, and definitely not with someone related to your goddamn best friend.

At least.

Not right now.

Fucking. 

God.

Not to mention the fact that Dirk would literally fucking kill you.

Well maybe not literally.

Okay maybe almost literally.

Kinda rude for him to be such a friend hoarder in the first place when he’s already got a monopoly on Dave’s attention, and everybody and their mother calls him best friend.

You roll your eyes, push yourself up in bed. Jane may be a skeptic, but she’s got too much faith in you if she thinks you’re just gonna roll over and go to sleep because it’s “late” and “past your bedtime” or whatever.

As the fuck if.

A Strider’s got priorities.

And by priorities you do, in this case, mean incurable insomnia.

It’s kinda bad enough that Roxy is the one who gets to accompany Mom tomorrow morning (not that she doesn’t deserve it, she doesn’t get a lot of quiet time with you numbnuts climbing all over both of them at every turn but), but you have this. Knot all balled up in your stomach, pulse racing, brain scrambling for, for something. You don’t know. 

Maybe you kinda wish you had more one on one time with Mom, and you’re jealous, or maybe (just maybe okay let’s not get ahead of ourselves here whoa nelly and all that) you actually kind of want to see Bro?

You wouldn’t go as far as to say you miss him. Dude was the most oppressive presence in your life next to Lil Fucking Cal, and at least Cal didn’t carry around a razor sharp sword. The quiet has been almost indescribably good, and the food?? Cooked food? Goddamn.

You haven’t even really been in contact. You open Pesterchum from time to time, and he’s usually online (dude sleeps about as much as Dirk, now that he’s not like, dying), but you can’t bring yourself to do it. Mom says he asks how you’re both doing, and she insists he misses you, but.

Well. It’s kinda hard to tell? Mom is sorta known for blowing shit out of proportion, especially when it comes to your Bro, and even though she don’t mean nothin’ by it, you can’t really tell when she’s lying. Inscrutable, her and Roxy both.

And also maybe you’ve never really figured he’d ever miss you at all?

Like, why would he? All he’s ever wanted (you assume, you guess, based on context and also the fact that he quite literally tells you to fuck off more than have the time) is to be alone, and you and Dave have always.  
Been there, you guess.

So this weird feeling in your chest, a tight little knot that presses at the base of your throat, just above the clavicle, it’s real fuckin’ foreign.

You don’t love it.

You just don’t know if you’re ready to admit to missing him.

Dave does. Or kinda does. It feels like he’s a little unsure about that. Can’t really blame him for that, not with how fucked up your whole situation has been, still kinda is.

Look, the vacation’s been great! It’s great! Mom and breakfast food, chilling with Rose and Roxy. Video games, doing homework, sleeping in your own bed? It rules. You’d totally love if this were the new normal for, for at least awhile?

And there’s the problem.

Forever feels like a long damn time. Forever without Bro would be.

Weird.

Kinda feels unfair, honestly. You already dealt with this horseshit, you thought you were over it, this whole charade, this silly game you play where you hem and haw over Bro and he doesn’t give a shit, and you get mad, then sad, and then start the process all over again.

You buried the guy.

Fuck, you  _buried_ him.

So what the fuck is up with your psychological need to see his stupid idiot face and maybe say _“hey can you like, stick around a few days for like, oh I don’t know, fun or something?”_

Is that messed up?

Is it messed up to miss the guy who ruined your life? Even if it’s slightly unfucked now, maybe even in a good way?

It feels messed up.

Maybe you’re messed up.

He definitely doesn’t deserve your sentimental bull crap.

But maybe it’s not about what he deserves.

Maybe you’re just allowed to miss the guy who raised you from time to time.

Actually, scratch that you do  _not_ miss the guy who raised you, fuck that, what a nightmare.

But maybe,

Just maybe, ok, just like a lil teensy tiny bit just,

Maybe you miss the person he’s sorta becoming? Now that’s he’s not.

Well what the fuck do you know about what he is and isn’t? You ain’t a sprite anymore, fuck that, fuck knowing shit you ain’t got no business knowing. No encyclopedic knowledge no game guides just Dave.

Just Dave and Dave and more fuckin’ Dave.

And fuck you, there’s the next problem.

You were never a godtier. Sure, cool.  Cool cool cool. Fine. That’s okay. Whatever.

But this? Whatever the fuck powers you have now unlocked like some shitty character in a knockoff RPG, that one guy you never actually take on missions because they only allow three party members, and you’re not one of them, and fine, that’s okay too, you didn’t want to go in the first place, and maybe this is getting away from you a little?

Anyway, you want a goddamn gift receipt, a full fucking refund.

It’s bad enough you’ve almost got a front row ticket to all of Dave’s most private feelings, you unlocked that little present by virtue of being almost virtually the same guy (and you promised you’d stop doing that, that you wouldn’t keep saying it, but fuck if it ain’t true some days), but you’ve started to see flashes of the other Davesprites across all time.

The Daves you can handle. They’re like a murmur, a constant undercurrent that you don’t acknowledge because none of them ever mattered, at least no more than you did.

But this.

Oh god you don’t fucking know.

Whatever the release of Roxy and Dirk’s guardians did, it rocked the universe boat, twisted your perception of time sideways for long enough to puke your guts out onto the floor, and gave you... this.

Could be worse, you guess. Dave got the shit fucked end of that stick, but you’re not happy.

In fact, if you have one more nightmare about John’s planet exploding, seeing your best friend charred to fucking ashes again, right in front of you, you’re gonna shit your pants in rage.

There was kind of a point as Davesprite that you think you stopped wanting to live, and that’s fucked up, yeah, and it’s really hard to admit, but this is just.

Horrible. You think about the timeline John scraped back from the edge of death, and you think you might be just a little grateful that he is more your John than Dirk or Rose or Jade are yours.

Kinda fucked up, you think, that you managed to lose Jade twice.

Side effect of being doomed, maybe.

Maybe this time it wasn’t your fault, but you also think that if you hadn’t been so focused on running away, it wouldn’t have happened in the first place, or you could have - you don’t know. You were a sprite, weren’t you? Shouldn’t you have the ability to

to heal, or

Help? At least?

What a joke, you couldn’t stop Bro from dying either, and what was the point of all that if nothing you did ever did anything _good_?

You drag a hand across your eyes, take a minute to breathe.

You can’t do this again.

Not right now.

Okay. Okay okay okay.

It’s okay.

Everyone is alive now.

That’s what matters.

You think of the way Bro looked at you, at the end of June, frown painting lines on his face you’d never seen before. You think of how he made you cry, how sometimes you still get so frustrated with his whole, just. Everything. How ridiculous it all is. How you never really cried before, growing up. Not when you fell, not when you were sad or scared or lonely.

How all of that was his fault.

But the look on his face, eyebrows furrowed, mouth pulled down, Dirk’s eyes, there, in that moment, Davesprite orange.

You just lost it.

You wish he’d stop trying to die.

Or, or whatever  is sort of killing him just knocks it the fuck off. Lets you have one goddamn thing in life that isn’t influenced by the fucking Game.

Fat fucking chance of that, right?

You haul yourself up out of bed and into your chair. If nothing else, at least you can snag something from the kitchen and maybe watch the TV on mute til you pass out. Maybe pester Dave. He’d be game probably. You doubt he’s sleeping any better than you are.

 

What you don’t expect, rolling behind the stairs and towards the kitchen, is to see the back of Mom’s head, tucked into the corner of the giant sectional, face tipped down so she can’t see you. You stutter to a stop by the bronzed vacuum (you don’t know why she keeps the thing around now, and it’s kind of a point of contention between her and Rose, but you’re not sticking your nose in there, either).

You’re not really supposed to be up late tonight, since their flight is early and Mom wants the welcome party to be kind of a big deal or whatever, and you don’t want to sleep in and. And fuck it all up, you guess. As if it’s not gonna be super fucking awkward, and basically just a giant trainwreck of embarrassment that you don’t think you could properly prepare for, even if you wanted to.

But she’s the one driving, probably shouldn’t even be up, so instead of being smart, going back to your room, pestering Dave, demanding his attention (as if that’s hard, and god fucking dammit, the banter between you is masturbatory enough without you making it worse), you clear your throat, you roll forward, let your wheel bump the pedestal with a soft _tink_.

She flinches and you wince, but you know her well enough to know nothing’s gonna happen, calm the fuck down, Dave, and you go the long way round the couch, nice and slow, ain’t trying to startle her further, look how visible and nonthreatening you’re being.

Her eyes follow your path, smile pinched at the edges, and when you turn the corner to face her, you stop dead in your tracks.

Roxy’s mom is draped across the right side of the couch, long dress pooling on the floor, head in Mom’s lap. You uh. Definitely weren’t expecting that.

“Dave,” Mom says, eyebrows bunching together, voice soft. “What are you doing up, sweetie?”

“Couldn’t uh,” you start, too loud, lower your voice when she presses a finger to her lips with a wink. “Couldn’t sleep. Figured I’d grab a snack, you know, maybe just a juice, maybe like, idk, a ramen cup or some shit, all feeling to get my nostalgia on, maybe even eat some fruit, be healthy, kickstart that summer diet, you know?” She stares patiently and you flounder a moment, uncertain. She looks tired, bags under her eyes outlined in the dim light, strain in her smile. You don’t usually see Mom like this. You don’t especially like it. “I didn’t think anyone else would be up,” you finally admit.

She sighs gently, pats the space beside her. “C’mon, kiddo, come sit for awhile, you can keep me company, yeah?”

You hesitate, hand dragging along a wheel. You’ve been trying to avoid Old Rose (not that you’d tell anyone you call her that) as much as physically possible. She’s tall, intimidating, and aside from being eloquent, sharp, and fully aware of it, you feel like she knows shit, like there’s an undercurrent of cruelty laced through her words that Rose hasn’t completely developed, maybe never will. She’s got a smile like cutting glass, like a shark, like Rose’s but worse.

Not to mention the way she freaked Dave out, to the point where he had climbed into your bed the other night, no warning, just a “shut up and move over.”

You know he misses Dirk, but goddamn, a dude needs a little fucking warning before he commits to a sleepover (you didn’t actually mind it much, but you don’t think you’d be comfortable admitting that, at least not yet).  
So you sit there and you hesitate and Mom’s smile never wavers, and you think about how much of Roxy really shines through there, how she does this kind of thing for all of you, day in and day out, and never complains about it.

“If it’s all the same, think I’m gonna sit tight for now,” you whisper, though you scoot a little closer, maneuver around Jaspers’s bed with as much care as you can. He doesn’t like you much. Go figure.

“Dave,” she says again, but this time there is amusement, laced with warning, and her smile becomes a bit more genuine. “You don’t have to be afraid of her, you know.”

“I’m not,” you say, too quick, a little defensive, hands flexing. “She just -” makes you nervous. Terrifies Dave, probably set out to terrify you. You’ve been avoiding her. Actively.

Mom’s hand threads through her hair, smooths it down, and Big Rose doesn’t stir for beans, just hums and tucks her face further into her arm.

Well. You spent four months getting to know that exact pose.

You gnaw on your lip, try to word it politely. “Is she...?”

Mom sighs, shoulders drooping. “Yes,” she murmurs, sounds a little disappointed, maybe a touch fond, “as a skunk. But it’s alright, really. Her life wasn’t easy, sweetie. We all have different ways of dealing with things. And she’s been so good with Roxy, I wouldn’t dream of... I couldn’t possibly... Well.” She clicks her tongue, looks down at her not-quite daughter. “Some things are harder to quit than others. We’ll work on it.”  
You sincerely fucking doubt that. Not that Roxy doesn’t have a spine, and Mom handles Bro better than you’ve ever seen anyone manage, but they’ve both got weak spots, and those weak spots have a name.

Mom’s been doing great, going dry, cold fucking turkey, Rose assures you, and Roxy’s been a great help with that, both of them are awesome you’re super proud but you. Don’t know. Maybe no one was around to stop Roxy’s mom.

Maybe the one person who should have never did.  
It doesn’t feel great.

“You know, you don’t have to let her,” you say, and maybe that’s childish, and maybe it’s not your place, it definitely isn’t, because Mom is a mom and you’re just a kid, but she’s been working so hard and to let it all go down the drain is -

It’s not fair.

“It’s your house, s’much as it is hers, and you could throw it all away, you don’t have to sit there while she drinks herself silly, you can just - just say no.” Your voice dies off when you see Mom’s face.

She blinks at you, surprise, disbelief, and you bite back on a wince. You fucked up, you shouldn’t have said anything, you overstepped your boundaries and made a fucking fool of yourself. Fuck. FUCK.

It’s so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Could hear Jaspers purr. It makes you deadly uncomfortable, the way she just lets the emotions roll across her face like that, neon bright, a billboard of feelings you never learned how to project.

You should probably blame Bro for that.

You’re still undoing a lot of the -

Well anyway you’re working on your shit. It doesn’t matter.

Or it does, you guess. But whatever.

“Sorry,” you say, before she can open her mouth.

She doesn’t look any happier, and part of you shrivels up into knots of anxiety. “I think,” she starts slowly, voice low, a little sad, fingers curled into Rose’s hair, “there are boundaries that, no matter how bad you want to cross ‘em, you just aren’t strong enough, or you’re too scared to, or you’re just not ready. And that’s okay, too.” Her smile pinches again. “Rose and I hardly know each other, now. I couldn’t possibly - it wouldn’t be right to -” Mom laughs, but there’s no joy in it. “I’m not her mother, am I?”

It hurts you, seeing her like this, beneath the discomfort, the foreign feeling of the interaction. And you squeeze the arms of your chair. “You kind of are,” you offer, a little sarcastic, and you cave, push yourself up and crawl onto the far side of the couch. Easy escape rough, if you need it. “But it’s kind of weird to think about, since I’m pretty sure she’s older than you, and our family dynamic here is already way more messed up than most people have to deal with.”

She laugh-snorts, covers her mouth to hide it. Roxy never does that, never bothers to hide a smile. It’s interesting, you note. You can see her dimples here, think about Rose’s shark grin, how they dimple right to left, just like Mom. Heh. “Okay, okay. Enough about me. Don’t you worry about Rose, here, I’ll take care of her.” There is a tenderness to Mom’s smile when she looks at Roxy’s mom that you’re almost jealous of. She brushes the bangs out of her eyes before looking at you. Her expression doesn’t waver, and you feel embarrassed for no reason at all. “What’s up, Davie? Tell me everything.”

You open your mouth, close it. You can’t fight with an adult after they’ve closed the book on the subject. You know that from Bro, and if Mom is half as stubborn, you’re not lookin’ for another fight. Ugh. Feelings. You hate this. “Guess I’m just - anxious, maybe? About tomorrow?”

That’s a fucking understatement. You’d be biting your fucking nails off if you didn’t think you’d make them bleed.

Mom just tips her head, smile softer, almost a frown. “Worried about your dad?”

Wow he sure is

your

Well.

That’s.

Huh.

“Yeah,” you mumble, look at the vacuum again, then the wizard statue shoved just behind it, the dragon curled around the castle. “I know he - well it’s only been like a week, and obviously if something had happened he’d’a told you or, or I think you woulda known, or said something, anyway, because he’s so fucking incompetent at talking to anyone he’d probably die again before he bothered to mention it, make us go out of our way to like, Oujia his ass, and then he’d just be like _‘oh yeah forgot to tell you everything is terrible forever and also I died, rip in peace the worst brother anyone has ever had the misfortune of knowing.’_ ” You look at her briefly. “So yeah, I guess maybe I just. I think I miss him? Is that weird?” Oh god why did you say that. Hurry up. Take it back. Undo the damage. Don’t let her know you.

Well you do want to

Fuck it doesn’t matter does it god you didn’t mean to fucking

Dammit.

Her face lights up with kindness, but it still feels like pity, even though you know she doesn’t mean it. “No, honey, I don’t think it’s weird. He’s your dad! You love him!”

You wince. That’s still. A hard subject for you to confront. You’re not really sure it’s true, at least not yet, and you’re definitely

It’s fucking complicated. That’s all there is to say on the matter.

If Mom sees, she doesn’t say. “He’s a tough guy to deal with some days, if not most’a them. I’ve known him for forever and he’s exactly the same as the day I met him. Never in my life have I met a more stubborn jerk, talking to him is like pulling teeth, I swear to fu-” She stops suddenly and you snicker.

Mom hasn’t changed much in that respect. Still trying to “set a good example” as if you, Dave, and Roxy aren’t already completely fucking ruined.

“You can say fuck, Mom,” you tell her, knowing damn well what she’ll say, and fighting a grin.

“Noooooo,” she whisper-cries, touches a hand to her cheek. God she is so dramatic. And you wonder where you get it from. Actually, scratch that, you’ve met Dirk. Still no goddamn clue. Drama queens, the whole fucking family. “You kiddies shouldn’t be swearin’ up a storm just because Dirk can’t keep his mouth shut!”

Hearing her call Bro by name is still kinda weird, but it’s also funny, the way she gets so riled up and huffy about it. The way Bro treats her is just. Bizarre. The whole idea of him having friends is super fucking unfathomable. You kinda love it, though. As a concept.

“I kinda think Rose can be almost as bad,” you say, tuck one of your legs up under yourself to get more comfortable. The couch hasn’t gotten much use over the years, and it shows, the way the vinyl still squeaks from time to time, how there aren’t any loose threads for you to pull at nervously. “But I think that’s more Dave’s fault than yours. Meteor adventure or whatever. He’s a bad influence. Which probably makes me a bad influence. I guess crossways Bro ruined both of them, and also me, if you think about it, haha.”

“Yes, meteor, that’s right,” she murmurs, and you feel your stomach drop with the way her expression closes off, how plasticine it feels.  
Fuck. Fuck you fucked up. Why did you bring that up? You’re pretty sure Bro never felt bad about dying, abandoning you and shit, probably thought “builds character,” and fuck all of anything else (you don’t think about him gripping the pendant, you don’t think about the expression on his face before he).

But Rose’s mom, she

Well she wasn’t perfect, you know that. You love Mom, like really probably love her? But you’re not enough of an idiot to put her on a pedestal. Maybe once upon a time, in another life. But not here, not now. Not after you saw Rose’s house in that doomed timeline, clean as a whistle, empty and lonely and sterile. Wizards, sure, wizards as far as the eye could fucking see, but nothing to indicate a family lived there, no portraits, no school projects, just... No parts or pieces of Rose anywhere, empty but for a cat on the fridge and a note on the floor.

So you know that no, she’s not perfect.

But she’s trying really, really fucking hard, and you can see that, and you know she loves the absolute shit out of Rose.

“She didn’t blame you,” you blurt, like a sentimental fool. If Rose heard you, she’d kill you maybe. “I can’t speak for her, but like. It’s just really obvious, I guess. That she missed you, and loves you a whole bunch. And stuff.” You shrug, drop your eyes to the floor. God this is lame. You are so lame. No one can ever know about this.

“Oh sweetie,” Mom says, voice so soft, so broken, “we never wanted to leave you. Whatever else you think about your dad, don’t let him fool you.” Your teeth grind together. “He would never have wanted you to see -”

“It’s fine,” you say, cut her off, don’t feel bad about it. Your hands curl onto your knees, and they’re shaking, you think, or your legs or shaking, or you’re angry, or you just. Really don’t want to fucking talk about this anymore. About. That. Anymore. “I wasn’t - myself,” you choke. “When it happened. I didn’t have - I couldn’t - it’s fine. I don’t care. I mean, I do care, I do, and honestly I’m kinda fucked up about it because, he doesn’t talk about? And maybe that’s worse? Maybe I want to talk about it, but how do you bring up something that’s so -” You cut yourself off, rub a hand across your eyes, realize, belatedly, that you aren’t wearing your shades.

 _Fuck_.

“Not with any measure of ease, David.” A voice, low and smooth, like ice dripping down your back, and you shudder, jerk your head back towards Mom to see Rose’s eyes, sharp and violet, staring at you.

You scramble back into your chair, spin the wheels around 180.

“Dave, you don’t have to -” Mom starts.

“It’s fine,” you say again, go around the front of the staircase this time, as far away from Her as you can manage. “I’m. Just really. I’m tired, now. I’m just tired, I’m gonna hit the hay. I l- uh.” You pause half a beat that thrums like the tick of a minute hand across the back of your mind. You offer your mom a tiny smile, hope it reaches your eyes. “G’night, Mom.”

She raises a hand like she wants to stop you, drops it as Roxy’s mom lifts from her lap, and then you make a hasty retreat before either of them can stop you.

 

You don’t sleep much, after that, just lying there with the blanket pulled over your head and your eyes squeezed shut, and you still feel anxious, maybe a little sick, by the time Dave drops himself down on top of you, what feels like minutes after you closed your eyes, and drags you up outta bed, flashsteps you to the living room before you can swat at him.

You don’t like being treated like a fucking paperweight, not one goddamn bit, but you can immediately tell that you’ve slept in by the light that pours in through the windows, bright white and blinding without your shades.

Dave does hand them to you, along with a sweatshirt, which at least he was fucking  _polite_ enough to offer, because of course, just your goddamn luck, it’s _snowing_. He sets your chair in between the coffee table and the couch and you appreciate that at least it's close enough to reach.

“What time is it,” you croak, when you finally notice the house is stock-fucking-still, a hush covering everything like a thick blanket. Snow does that, you think. You feel a little lost, mostly groggy, maybe a bit dehydrated. Confused, tired. Nothing out of the ordinary, huh.

“What am I, an alarm clock?” Dave scoffs, flopping down on the couch beside you, close enough that your legs touch. You’ve gotten used to to that. You don’t know where he picked up the habit, but you can see now that it’s something approaching comfort, at least for him.

“Half-past ten,” Rose says, which isn’t as precise as you like, but a weak grasp towards your aspect tells you she isn’t lying. When you tip your head back to look over the counter, she’s milling about the kitchen. Hopefully not cooking. You trust her less than Mom, and her coffee skills aren’t much better than Dave’s.

Wait.

You pause, suck in air through your teeth. Well. Fuck. “So they’re -”

“Mm, on their way back now, yes,” Rose says, and you hear butter hit the pan.

“Should you be cooking right now?” Dave asks before you can.

“Shouldn’t you be minding your own business?” she huffs, scowls at him. Defensive. She’s just as nervous as both of you. You don’t know why, she has nothing to worry about. She’s already faced her own evil. Or, has been avoiding it. You don’t really want to get into the crazy ways Rose has gone out of her way to dodge Big Rose. The list is long, boring, and kind of insane.

You guess you don’t know much about Dirk’s bro, anyway. Just that he’s like. You, kinda. Probably more like Dave. It doesn’t feel good, anyway. Seeing yourself all grown up... sounds kind of messed up? Maybe?

“Can’t you like, use your powers to tell us when they’ll get here?” Dave asks, reaches over to pick at the loose thread of your pajamas. You swat him away, but he’s persistent, so you settle for scowling, nudging if his hands get too close to your hoodie. He’s not wearing his godtier PJs, you note, and wonder if that was a conscious choice or he finally listened to Mom and fucking washed them.

“You’re the Time player, Dave,” Rose drawls, elbows heavy on the island. “Why don’t you tell me? For all that you claim to be able to do, you seem quite unwilling to participate in your own requested hijinks. Why is that, I wonder?”

Ugh. Yuck? “Can we not do this right now?” you whine, knock your knee against Dave’s. It’s taken a lot of intervention on your and Roxy’s part to get things back to where they were. The Alpha guardian drop definitely helped, if for no reason other than the creation of solidarity against a force of,

Uh.

Okay well you don’t think Big Rose is actually evil but.

“I’m not playing fucked up troll referee for the two of you first thing in the morning.”

“It’s called a hospistice,” Dave says.

“Auspistice,” Rose correctly loudly. “And I’ve always found the role quite fascinating. Did you know, trolls tend to lean towards -”

“I don’t and I don’t want to,” you say over her, scrambling for the remote. “No offense, Rose, but please shut the fuck up.”

She snorts, clearly displeased, but after you elbow Dave in the gut for snickering, both of them agree to eating burnt eggs and buttered toast in near complete silence for the rest of the hour.

  
They’re late.

They’re late and it’s all you can think about as the clock strikes eleven, then eleven-thirty, and Dave’s started pacing the living room while Rose takes the kitchen, washing the dishes and then playing absently with the magnets. You sit with your hands together and text Roxy, receive no reply, and agonize all over again.

It’s noon by the time Mom’s new car (minivan, it’s a fucking minivan and you can’t even complain because it’s wheelchair compatible and that’s awesome it is but god you’re really in it now, aren’t you, a fucking minivan) pulls up, and you’re so relieved that for a moment, you forget to be nervous.

“Should we -” Dave starts, stops, paces again, ends up hovering next to you, like he might sit, like he wants to run. You can’t blame him, reach up and squeeze his hand because - well. It just feels like the right thing to do? You guess? He squeezes back, and you almost smile.

You hear Mom come up the path before you see her, announcing her arrival with a loud clatter of baggage and a rowdy laugh. “Shake off your boots _outside_ , please,” you hear through the door as it starts to turn, and your stomach rolls with it. “Yes, that includes you, Strider, you absolute _child_!”

You suck in air, feel yourself go tense, feel Dave slip away from you. He doesn’t sit, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, shifting from foot to foot. You wish you had the luxury. You’ve been dreading this moment for days, you and Dave both, and you nearly flinch when the door swings open, and then -

Then there he is, not quite you, not quite Dave, near-white hair and identical shades, shucking off an expensive winter jacket and careening his head around, face cracking into a smile that could send you running with its ease, like he’s pleased, satisfaction shining like a beacon across his mouth.

It’s.

It’s weird.

“I see the decor is more or less in tact,” he says conversationally, and that’s your voice, maybe a couple octaves deeper, a halfway point between you and Bro, accent clinging to the edges faintly. He tips his head up to take a fucking gander at Zazzerpan. “Fuck that is a tall goddamn wizard if I ever did see one. Holy shit.”  
Is he wearing a suit?

Oh god he is.

Oh god there’s a version of you in a suit and it’s just this, this uncanny valley effect, with you and Dave frozen by the couch, something you were never meant to see like this, a faint smile and a smile that tugs from left to right.

“Roxanne is a fan,” Big Rose purrs, and you do flinch, then, as she appears out of fucking nowhere, like she appeared out of thin air. She’s been missing all goddamn morning, hasn’t made a peep, and you’re almost bothered as you watch her cross the room. You’ll never get used to the way she walks, you think, or how tall she is. How tall Rose will be one day, you guess. 

Old Dave’s (and yeah you’re calling him that because fuck you he is older than you, older than Bro, and you are  _freaked_ the FUCK out right now,  _Christ_ ) face softens ever so slightly. “Rose,” he breathes, and he strides forward to embrace his sister in a one-two step, long-ass legs and spindly arms, just like you. The first thing you notice is that he’s tall. Taller than you, taller than Dirk, and taller still, you realize as they hug, than Big Rose in heels (and by extension, Mom).

You weren’t expecting that, not really. You didn’t think you had much room left to grow after the jump you made somewhere between June and the Washington trip, and that’s almost something to look forward to, you guess, makes Rose’s height less intimidating.

The whole situation is just bizarre, though.

He wraps his arms around his sister and holds her tight for a touch too long before his eyes roam and find you and Dave.

You steel yourself for

You don’t know.

Something.

Laughter, mockery, maybe just a fainting spell. You’d almost rather he ran the fuck away instead of just standing there, mouth theatrically agape, jaw flapping for a beat, then two. “Well fuck me running,” he says in that voice, that almost-drawl. “Did I really look like that?”

Okay that’s.

Fucking rude, for starters.

“It’s unfortunate for all of us that you no longer do,” Big Rose says, releasing him with a pat and a sigh. “You were such a handsome boy, Dave.” She pinches his cheek and he bats her away. “Whatever happened to you?”

Your cheeks go red, and you could die right now, right here, and no one could stop you.

Old Dave just squawks, grips his chest like a bonafide drama queen. This whole family, you swear to god. “That hurts, Rose, that fuckin’, guts me, right down to the core, just call me a fish and slice me horizontal next time, won’t you? What the fuck could I have possibly done to warrant such blatant slander and aggression from my favorite and dearest sister?”

“Lucky for us she’s your only goddamn sister,” comes a familiar rolling drawl, and you’re forced to deal with the most crushing realization of all: you’ll never grow to be taller than Bro. He steps in from the outside covered in snow across his broad shoulders and hunkered down in a puffy winter coat you’ve never seen before. You didn’t even know he owned a jacket. Maybe he never did. You certainly fucking didn’t. 

“That’s mean-spirited,” Big Rose says with too much amusement, and you instantly feel the energy shift somewhere to the left. A smirk curls onto her face like it belongs there, and you lament the Lalonde women, not for the first time. “It’s a pleasure, Mr. Strider. I’ve heard so much about you.”

“I certainly fucking hope not,” Bro says, shrugging off his coat with help from Old Dave.

Okay that’s.

That’s weird.

Is that weird?

You’re pretty sure that’s weird.

He tips his hat with all the sincerity of a Texas cowboy and snow rolls off the brim and onto the floor.

“Oh please, as if my brother has ever been able to keep his mouth shut about anything,” she says, voice delighted, horribly shark-like, and you hate everything about what’s going on over there.

“Can we not murder my character for five fucking minutes please?” Old Dave bemoans, hanging their coats on the nearest wizard statue. Mom’s not gonna like that much, you can hear the lecture already.

Bro only snorts, and you notice him rock back on his heels when Mom finally pushes past to get inside, holds the door open for Dirk and Roxy, who are carrying a shit ton of bags on their arms like they just did a speed run, Mall of America edition. Guess that explains where they’ve been.

You roll your head back to see if Dave has noticed how fucked and weird Bro is being, but he isn’t even goddamn looking, eyes trained on Dirk as he crosses the room so they can hug.

You scoff softly, but you’re not surprised, and it’s kind of sweet, seeing Dirk drop all the bags and meet him in the middle, hands splayed wide across Dave’s back, and he tucks his face into his shoulder so you can’t see his shades.

It’s moments like these that the ugly jealousy rears its head again, and you have to tamp it down and school your face into something more controlled as Bro wanders over and makes himself comfortable two seats away from you.

“Hey Thing One, how’s life treatin’ you?” You are almost certain he is asking if you’re genuinely fucking okay. You have been kind of. Well a normal person would worry. He offers a fist and you give him a tender bunp, if only because he called you Thing One, instead of Two. You’re pretty sure you’re not imagining the way the corner of his mouth crooks just the tiniest bit.

The itch to hug is strong, even though you’ve only ever done it that one time, and you should probably get your shit under fucking control here. You’re not an animal. You two don’t HUG, it’s just not fuckin’ done, now is it? There’s also about seven too many fucking people around, and you’re not willing to run the risk of him rejecting you in front of all of them. Also, Dave would probably fucking explode.

“It’s been cool,” you start, shrug, “but Mom has a strict no Taco Bell for dinner rule that’s put a damper on my dining experience. I was all packed up and ready to roll the fuck out, Bro, full on Autobots style, do you understand me? I was set and ready for a taco-themed homecoming the likes of which this world and any other has never goddamn seen. I was prepared to eat nothing but Dorito locos tacos for real actual weeks, until I was literally shitting orange and puking lettuce. It would have been absolutely terrible and I was looking forward to ever second of it. You have stolen that from me, dude, ripped it away like a lollipop from an insanely ugly baby.”

You don’t expect him to listen all the way through, because you never really worried about that before, and in truth he doesn’t look like he was, but he sighs, rolls his head your way. “If we go fast enough, we might make it outta here before anyone notices we’re gone.”

“Oh, I sincerely doubt you’d make it past the driveway.” A pair of arms lace delicately around his shoulders and you watch Bro go still as a statue. “Welcome back, Father. We missed you dreadfully. It’s been an absolutely calm and joyful experience without you. I couldn’t be happier to invite you to my home.”

You think he’s not going to react for a second, and you’re kinda surprised he hasn’t already, flinched back or flashstepped two states away, maybe realized this was a fucking mistake or, or god you don’t know. But then, hesitant and robotic, he reaches up and pats her arm, so lightly you don’t even hear it. _Pat pat_. “Hello, Rose. Pleasure, as always.”

It doesn’t sound like a fucking pleasure to you. You’re going to fucking herniate.

Rose struggles there for a second, eyes wide with surprise, and she pulls away slowly, like she’s afraid she broke him. “And the same to you,” she murmurs, doesn’t seem to know what to do, settles for standing there with her hands delicately on his shoulders for another moment.

You stare. Hard. Bro either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, head thumping back against the couch as you see him close his eyes behind his shades.

He’s too relaxed, too cavalier, like nothing bothers him, and you know it has nothing to do with his meds. Which can only mean -

“Are you drunk?” you hiss in disbelief.

He gives you a vague, half-hearted thumbs up. “As a skunk.”

“On your meds?” Dave calls, and Bro lifts his head to peer at him.

“Haven’t seen him take anything since last night,” Dirk says for him, leaning on Dave in a way you think is meant to be comforting.

“He drank his way through a half bottle of airline liquor like it was nothin’,” Old Dave chimes in from the door, inserting himself (unwelcome) into the conversation. “I can still feel the hole burning in my goddamn pocket. I’m almost impressed.”

“They do charge an awful lot,” Mom sighs, folding her arms to look disapprovingly Bro’s way. “Still, I can’t say I think much of it as a method for dealing with your nerves.”  
“Who said I was dealing with anything?” Bro scoffs, dismissive. “Maybe I just wanted to kick off the party early.”

“Dirk!”

“What,” they both say, though Dirk’s shitty little smile makes it clear he knows goddamn well.

“Oh my god,” you, Dave, and Old Dave say at the same time.

Bro breathes heavily out his nose, the familiar equivalent to a laugh, and you punch his arm. He doesn’t react because he’s too busy watching Old Dave’s face morph into distress and horror.

“This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” he announces in deadpan.

“You were stabbed in the chest with your own sword,” Big Rose points out.

“He’s not the only one,” Bro drawls. You’re pretty sure he’s actually enjoying this.

Old Dave lets out a sound that lands somewhere between a shriek and a wail. “ _What_ -”

“You’re not helping,” the Roses say synchronously, and all three Daves put their heads in their hands.

“You would not believe how fucked up it is that there are literally three of you right now,” Bro whispers to you, and you can hear his sloppy grin from here.

You can’t help it. You laugh. “We’re a fucking mess,” you say from between your fingers.

“That we are, little man,” he says out the corner of his mouth, offering another bump. “That we fucking are.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \o/ it was gonna be longer but.... Well! It will be the next chapter instead! Sorry again phew


	41. whip stitch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davesprite has an interesting conversation with two people, and one long overdue one with someone nobody particularly likes (except maybe he does, and maybe he'll finally admit it)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! This was supposed to be part of the other chapter but it ended up longer somehow so! Here we are!
> 
> Some minor discussions of depression! But mostly it is fine!

Things settle down pretty quick after you’re all piled inside, shoes off and coats all hung up. Roxy instantly latches back on to her mom, and you haven’t seen stars in her eyes this big since she first came back, where she sits with Old Dave and Rose in the corner of the sectional opposite you.

You guess she was in the same boat as Dirk, had never met either of them, and you know that this version of you is... kind of a big deal. Dirk has told you a little bit, and you’ve heard there might be a new movie release soon. The idea of a version of yourself being a famous anything is just... unsettling.

He doesn’t look that different than you, you guess, hair a little shorter, shoulders not as rounded. He smiles more, you think. Not that that’s much of a surprise. He didn’t grow up with Bro hovering over his shoulder.  
He also keeps looking over here, and it’s starting to piss you off.

You were staring first, sure, but what the fuck he could possibly want from you is beyond your grasp.

You catch shades with each other. He stares. You scowl. He doesn’t look away. His pokerface is better than yours, too. For all his open expression, he closes that shit down faster’n main street during a holiday parade.

You resent that.

If it bothers Bro at all, he’s too busy in his own head to care, or too busy being drunk to notice. You are not impressed, and definitely not happy.

Like, listen, you’re glad Rox is having fun, it’s nice, you love to see her excited about something, it’s great. But they’re kind of blocking your only exit.

Dirk lingers nearby, hovering needlessly. He doesn’t seem too interested in getting in there. Can’t fault him for that. Big Rose is fucking terrifying.

It is kind of embarrassing though, what with Roxy monopolizing both their guardians’ attention. Heh.

Better not let this shit show carry on any longer.

You catch Dave’s eye, raise a single brow. He grimaces, just enough for you to see, but you keep your mouth a straight line. _Come on, dude. You’ve waited long enough. It’s ridiculous._

He eventually concedes, nodding reluctantly. Then he elbows Dirk in the stomach, leans close enough to say something you can’t hear.

You give him a thumbs up as they climb the stairs towards Dave’s room. Got hells of shit to lay out, yo. Also, you figure Dirk will probably stay in his room, anyway. May as well take the luggage up now. Losers.

That just leaves you with this awkward as fuck family reunion you want no part in.

You twist your fingers around the strings of your hoodie, glance back at Rose. SOS, send fucking help, but she’s talking to Mom in the kitchen, which is rare, and you see them smile where Roxy sits beaming. You don’t much feel like interrupting.

At least not yet.

You’re rude, but you’re not that rude. They just got here. You can take a chill pill.

That leaves just you and Bro, huh.

Go fucking figure.

You can’t call it weird. Fucking typical, is what it is. It’s almost ridiculous, how much time you end up with this absolutely overgrown dickweed.

You’d complain more if you weren’t kind of happy to see him, if only because he gives you something to hide behind.

“Hey,” you say, when it’s been a minute and you think he’s passed out. It’s hard to tell, with the shades and his arms over his chest. You reach out, poke his arm. When he doesn’t move, you jab harder.

“What,” he says. Cool. Typical Bro. Except the stench of booze wafting off of him, he seems fine.

“How was...” You trail off. It feels forced. Stiff. You don’t know how to talk to him anymore. Maybe you never did. Maybe you thought you could, but it’s been a week, and you’ve been relatively at peace, maybe you’re... You don’t know. 

“Fine,” he says instead. “Quiet, with me and the kid. Didn’t really do much. I’d call it peaceful, but then that guy showed up.” He gestures half-heartedly at Old Dave, and like any other Dave, he stutters to a pause for a moment, opens his mouth.

Bro flips him off.

Haha god.

Why are you not surprised?

Still. “But you didn’t -”

Bro rolls his head towards you, and you see his eyebrows slant down, see his mouth curve into a frown. “Would it matter if I did?”

That is.

That’s the dumbest fucking bullshit you have ever

He can’t really expect you not to

Holy fuck.

“Yes,” you snap, almost on automatic. “Fucking obviously, what kind of question is that?”

He snorts softly, looks away. You can’t tell what he’s thinking, and the frustration pools in your gut, ties your stomach in knots. You really don’t get this guy, but you want to. You want him to know you,

You don’t want to seem,

But fuck you can’t just SAY that in front of everyone, that would be so.

Christ.

Dicks on a doorknob your life is hilariously stupid.  
Why are you acting like this? It’s just BRO.

You nearly jump out of your skin when Pesterchum lights up on your shades. It’s rare that you ever actually use your iShades, considering most of the time lately you’re on your phone or your laptop. Jesus, you should probably ask Dirk to upgrade these things. They’ve been using the same software since 2009. Goddamn. Not like you to fall behind on the technology curve. Bro would be ashamed.

Maybe.

Most likely he wouldn’t give a fuck.

\-- timaeusTestified  [TT] began pestering turntechGodhead  [TG] \--

TT: So hey, before you start freaking out, this isn’t Dirk.  
TT: Well it’s A Dirk.  
TT: Kind of.  
TT: Insomuch as I can be. Or was, anyhow.  
TT: My name is Hal.  
TT: Or Autoresponder, or AR, if you prefer.  
TT: I don’t know if you remember me.  
TT: It’s alright if you don’t, of course. We did meet, if only briefly, and I could hardly fault you for the slip in memory.  
TT: Considering our circumstances at the time.

You do, but you’re surprised he’d bother uh... pestering you, you guess, right now. Or at all. You had heard from Roxy that he was here, and just like, existed in general, but you didn’t think he cared much. You never questioned why. Figured he didn’t remember you, or if he did, didn’t really give a shit. You wouldn’t have been surprised either way.

TG: yeah i do  
TG: we talked and shit for a bit  
TG: really shot it all over i think  
TG: in that specific instance of a timeline that doesnt actually exist anymore and never did  
TG: dunno if you remember that though kinda seems like it might be a time guy thing but what do i know  
TG: sup  
TT: I thought it pertinent to introduce myself to you again.  
TT: Or properly, anyhow.  
TT: I was different at the time.  
TT: In that I was not actually myself.  
TG: haha yeah i uh  
TG: know the feeling  
TT: Right.  
TT: Yes, of course.  
TG: i dont really want to talk about it right now if thats what you wanted to do here  
TT: Oh, no. Not really.  
TT: I mean I’m sure it would help both of us, as previous sprite compatriots, but mostly I was curious about you.  
TT: I have not spent many of the opportunities given getting to know Dave, and to pass up another opportunity seemed unfair to you, and to myself.  
TT: I thought some not so kind things about you at the time, and I would like to make amends for that.  
TG: uhhh wouldnt have known that if you didnt tell me dude  
TT: .......  
TT: This is true, I.  
TT: I apologize.  
TG: its cool  
TT: All the same I feel responsible for the things that were thought or said to others by myself as a sprite, and I would like to apologize.  
TG: for what exactly cuz like  
TG: idk thinking i was a dick or some shit wouldnt really bug me that much i kinda was at that point in time if were being all honest and shit  
TG: depressed bird dave blah blah blah  
TT: I had referred to you in a way that may have implied you were not authentically my, or Dirk’s brother.  
TT: I can see now that that was unfair of me, and also an absolutely fucking asshole dick move to make.  
TG: yeah  
TG: well

You don’t really know what to say to that. You don’t remember much about your conversation with the ARquiussprite. He liked muscles and had some pretty typical quirks that remind you of Dirk now, maybe a little more enthusiastic about horses, but you guess it’s the same as.

As the way you were.

S’not that you hated every moment, sure, of course you couldn’t possibly - Nepeta was - things were different, and you were - but it does feel. Weird, now. AR isn’t Arquius. You aren’t them. S’fine. You’re just a Dave being a Dave. Can’t exactly tease the dude for his enthusiastic milk hobby when he’s not the same guy. 

Bro raps on your skull sharply and you bat his hands away as he reaches for your shades. “What you got your face all fucked up for? Are you talkin’ to someone?”

“Shut up, none of your business, yes, fuck off,” you snap.  
“You look constipated,” he tells you, and then he’s snatched your shades off your face, lifts up his own to peer into them before jamming them on all the way.

You actually stutter to a stop, blink in surprise. You’ve never seen Bro in anything else but those triangle shades, not in your whole damn life. Your most prominent memory of his eyes is when he fucking died, and you only got to see them on the regular before Dirk gave him spares.

Whatever he sees in there, he doesn’t like, a frown pulling at the corner of his mouth. He holds you away for a few moments before handing them back wordlessly, pushing himself up to his feet.

There is definitely something uncomfortable with the ease of which he steps over the other Dave’s legs, slapping him upside the head as he goes.  
Wow.

Maybe that’s just a built in reflex.

You don’t know how you feel about that.

You do not fight a laugh at the sound Old Dave makes on his exit, not at all, and then Bro’s flashed away before you can protest.

Hopefully to sleep off the fucking airline liquor. Seeing him all loopy makes you anxious, maybe a tad nauseous, in a way you cannot explain.

You put your shades back on and carefully don’t look at anyone else in the room, try to hide the immediate wince.

It’s worse than you expected.

TT: I suppose it was a poor reflex of my own insecurity at the time, and I do seriously wish I could take it back.  
TT: If that was not clear.  
TT: .....  
TT: I will beg, if you want me to, but the fact that Dirk could potentially see these logs one day fills me with an emotional response I don’t think I’m fully ready to compute.  
TG: better get started now, botbrain.  
TT: In so many words, what the fuck.  
TG: think i could say the same here, kid.  
TT: Oh, it’s you.  
TG: no shit.  
TG: can y’all not pick on this dude for five fucking minutes.  
TG: jesus almost everything you said was an insult, you realize that, right.  
TT: Like I said, I didn’t mean to offend, Broseph.  
TT: And I’m trying to goddamn apologize.  
TG: that’s mister broseph to you.  
TG: and you should try fuckin’ harder.  
TG: whatever shitty mind games you wanna play, don’t play them with dave.  
TG: that’s all i ask.  
TT: I wasn’t planning on it.  
TG: good. shouldn’t be a problem, then.  
TT: I feel I’ve asked this question before, but are you seriously always this much of a dick?  
TG: kinda sounds like you don’t need me to answer that at all.

You take a second, bury your face in your hands. God you hate your fucking family. This is ridiculous. How embarrassing. You are sixteen goddamn years old. You just. Cannot believe this.

TT: I’ll take that as a yes.  
TG: hey super fucking sorry about that i have no clue what crawled up his ass and died shit dude im so sorry  
TT: It’s quite alright. In a way I probably deserved it. I am not without blame in this situation.  
TT: I am sorry, you know.  
TT: About before.  
TG: yeah i know  
TG: dirks like that too sometimes he doesnt think before he says fucked up shit its a goddamn family trait  
TG: but hes also pretty good at realizing when hes messed up  
TG: or at least he is now  
TG: and he always apologizes for it eventually even if it takes him a week to hem and haw and drag his head back outta his ass  
TG: you should see him and dave the way they communicate its absolutely lousy with genuine emotions  
TG: so i know i dont really have anything to worry about  
TG: in regards to me and you and the fucked up shit you may or may not have definitely said  
TG: were ice cool bro fucking glacial over there global warming couldnt touch this if it tried  
TT: Huh.  
TG: huh what  
TG: what the fuck kind of cryptic ass bullshit answer is that  
TT: I suppose it is just.  
TT: I am used to people associating me with Dirk.  
TT: Or at the very least, comparing me to him.  
TG: well you are him arent you  
TG: like you literally started as a copy of his brain or whatever  
TT: Correct, though I feel it is unfair to claim myself as such, given how he and I have diverged and grown in seemingly opposite directions.  
TG: why not  
TT: What?  
TG: i mean like  
TG: dave and i spent the first thirteen years of our lives being the same guy  
TG: technically i think im actually four months older than him and isnt that super fucked up to think about like when even is my birthday anymore right haha  
TG: but anyway that didnt stop just because i became a big feathery douchebag  
TG: im still dave  
TG: not the same dave sure ill give you that we are definitely two separate guys  
TG: and i called myself davesprite for a long time cuz i didnt feel like i deserved to be dave anymore after fucking up everything?  
TG: and that was probably like  
TG: actually really messed up?  
TG: everyones kinda made it clear that it was pretty fucked up and looking back it definitely feels shitty  
TG: but i kind of like just being dave again and also not being a sprite or glowing any weird colors  
TG: mostly  
TG: far as i can tell you got the same memories and the same childhood and shit right youre not actually less of a dude just cuz you dont have a body right  
TT: I suppose from your perspective that might make sense.  
TT: I think I’ve rather established myself as a separate entity entirely now, no matter how much it started as a joke.  
TG: yeah and thats super cool bro  
TG: but even if you didnt want to do that i think thatd be fine too  
TT: .... Yes. Perhaps you’re.  
TT: You’re onto something.  
TG: uh like what  
TT: Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I said perhaps.  
TG: i think perhaps youre being kind of a dick  
TT: I am always being kind of a dick.  
TT: It’s part of my charm.  
TG: okay well i think youre full of shit and thats part of my charm  
TG: but i should probably go check on bro and make sure he didnt like  
TG: kill himself on stairs or something which would be hells of ironic but i really could not fucking handle right now  
TG: but uh  
TG: we can talk again  
TG: later if you want  
TT: Of course.  
TT: I’d like that.  
TT: You don’t need an excuse for me to stop bothering you, you know. I do recognize your hands are, metaphorically, for the moment, a little full.  
TT: No hard feelings.  
TT: You’ve given me a lot to think about.  
TG: whoa really  
TT: Yes, but as it turns out, that’s okay too.  
TG: heh cool  
TG: well uh  
TG: bye i guess  
TT: I believe the phrase is “talk to you later”, Dave.  
TG: oh fuck off dude

\-- turntechGodhead  [TG] ceased pestering timaeusTestified  [TT]  \--

You reach over and drag your chair open as you speak. “No offense or whatever, but can I get through to take a piss or is that going to be a federal fucking issue?”

Roxy laughs with delight, jumping up and out of the way before you’re even in your share. She’s always kind of good about this sort of thing. You appreciate it more than you’re willing to admit. “Jeez, DS, if you wanted us to GTFO, you coulda asked nicely.”

“I would have, if I thought I had to,” you snark.

She sticks out her tongue at you before turning to her mom and beaming. “Mom, do you think Uncle Dave would want to see the lab cats? Ro-Lal and I recently allocated a whole new area just for them, ur gonna love it. Uncle Dave, do you wanna see some mutant fuckin’ babies?”

“Goddamn, I’m an uncle now,” Old Dave drawls, tipping his head up to Big Rose as she stands and giving her an eyebrow wiggle. “Hear that, Rose? I’m an _uncle_.”

“A title you’re just barely fit to handle,” she says dryly.

Old Dave just grins, but it falters as he glances back at you. You wish you knew what he fucking wanted. You stare back. “Honestly I’d probably love that? And I hate to break your heart, kiddo but I’m fuckin’ beat.”

“Language,” Mom says, voice twice as amused as usual.

Dave looks at her like he had forgotten she even existed, and then you see a tiny smile curl back onto his mouth. It’s discomfitingly familiar. “Yes, ma’am, sorry ma’am.”

“Oh, you’re quite forgiven,” Mom says, but she crosses her arm, waggles a finger. “But I’m afraid I do have to get back to work. It is the middle of the week, and you lot are welcome to take a tour, but just try not to touch anything.” She has a smoother wink than Roxy, a smile that promises trouble at its corners, and she’s gone with the wave of a hand and gentle pat to Rose’s shoulder.

Rose doesn’t look overly pleased about the whole thing, but you can hardly blame her for that, can you.

Dave waits for her to go before offering an apologetic look Roxy’s way. “’Fraid that offer’s gonna have to wait a lil longer. How ‘bout you give me some time to haul my shit upstairs, and we’ll go together later, huh?”

“Yes, if it’s quite alright with you, Roxy dear, I would very much like a moment to catch up with my brother,” Big Rose says, eyes flicking from him to Roxy. Lalondes. This is why they invented shades. “It has been some time, since we have seen each other. I rather think I missed him. I know he would adore your and Roxanne’s collection, but mayhaps it could wait? Just a few hours longer.” She has this way of speaking to Roxy that you have never seen Rose attempt with anyone else. Low, gentle, almost familiar, in that way. She touches her shoulder lightly, like she doesn’t know if she’s allowed to, and gives it a squeeze, a mimic of Mom and Rose. You wonder if she even notices. “After dinner, yes?” You see a lot of Bro there, except maybe less terrible. She doesn’t seem completely adverse to touch, even if she’s terrible at it.

Roxy frowns, wavering a beat. You know she’s been practically attached to her mom at the hip since she got back. Big Rose gives her almost every minute of her day, and it’s been what feels like almost a week since you’ve gotten to hang with Roxy at all.

You can’t completely blame her.

You and Dave have basically been steeped in Bro and his horseshit since April. It’s just. Different.

Roxy actually  _likes_  her mom.

(And maybe you’re working on it okay you’re definitely struggling to but you’re _trying_.)

She nods slowly, hands flexing at her sides. “Oh. Yeah, uh. Yeah, u right. You guys must b fuckin’ wiped! Wouldn’t be surprised if Dirk ptfo’d up there, haha. And you probably haven’t seen each other since, um - well.” She shrugs, rubs her arms when her mom pulls away.

You wish you knew what to say, but this is the most awkward situation you have been in in awhile, so. She’s on her own this time. Sorry Mini-mom.

“We can go later, s’okay. Maybe tomorrow or some shit. Bet Dirk would get a kick out of it, too, heh.” She turns her big pink eyes on Rose next, and you try not to look at either of them. “Rosie, you still haven’t seen the shituation since we changed everything. Whaddya say, tomorrow after breakfast do u wanna get in on this?”

It’s a plea and you can see it there, see Rose wavering at the precipice.

“Oh,” she says, mechanical, gears turning in her head loud enough for you to hear. But she caves, because of course she does. It is not that she cannot say no to Roxy, but you find that she very rarely does, anyhow. “Yeah, I - yes, Roxy. Of course, I’d love to. Perhaps we should...” She looks at you and you shake your head minutely. No brother buggin’ til they finish wrapping up, however long that’ll take. You still don’t entirely understand the concept of a feelings jam, but it sounds nice, you think.

Too bad all your options suck.

Rose doesn’t like it, you can tell by her frown, but she lets it go with a slow nod. “Shall we head upstairs, then? Perhaps Dave and Dirk will join us when they’ve finished settling in.”

You doubt it, but you ain’t sayin’ shit here. You mostly want to take a fucking _nap_.

“Yeah, obvi I would LOVE that, Rosie.” Roxy looks at you, gnaws on her lip. “DS, u wanna come with?”

You look at Old Dave. He looks back at you. You squeeze your wheels, draw your hand along a spoke. “No,” you say. Correct immediately, “Pretty much the only thing I wanna do right now besides piss is take a nap? If that’s cool with everyone.”

“Okie, but text me if u change ur mind, k?” She’s looking between the two of you nervously, edging around the side of the couch towards Rose. “Not to ditch on a dime, but this whole thing is soups awk now, so Rosie and I r gonna bounce.”

Rose almost giggles, hides her smile behind a hand, and you have never felt more betrayed watching them climb the stairs behind you.

You shouldn’t have said no.

You wouldn’t have wanted to be carried in front of - well you just don’t fucking want to.

It’s not a federal issue or anything, you’re just kind of sick of it being a big deal. The exact brand of Lalonde fussing is maybe the most annoying, frustrating shit you’ve ever lived through, even if you do love them.

Maybe a dude just wants to be ignored for five minutes, goddamn.

Okay you don’t actually want that, you spent three years being exactly that but like.

Breathing room, you know?

And then it’s just you, another Dave, and another Rose, and you regret everything. Big Rose moves around the other side of the couch, and you don’t comment on the fact that she’s grabbing two glasses from the cabinet. It’s not worth it to start.

But Old Dave just sits there, and without anyone to distract him, he’s just straight up staring at you now.

“Can I fucking help you?” you snap, but not because you’re feeling self-conscious or anything, and definitely not like you’re being sized up.

Okay that’s exactly what’s going on.

You feel his gaze on you like Bro before a strife, back when you were still twelve-ish, maybe a little younger, when he’d circle you, correct your form with the blunt edge of his sword, maybe a foot.

He didn’t ever really touch you much, and he certainly never praised you.

It’s.

Unsettling, the way he can mimic that, without even knowing he’s doing it.

You wonder if you’re the same way, and you just don’t know it yet.

The idea doesn’t sit well with you.

“So you’re Dave,” he says conversationally.

That.

Sure is a thing he said huh.

Look, he’s not wrong.

Maybe you’re just used to being up to your tits in Daves. Guess he didn’t have a lot of practice.

Probably.

You’re not sure how much of an aspect a guardian holds onto, in the long run.

If you ever knew as a sprite, you certainly don’t remember now.

“I’m A Dave, sure,” you say, try not to sound like a shitty little asshole. Fail. “Not the main Dave, if that’s what you’re asking. First one, though, if you are.”

“Chronologically, ain’t I the first?” he says dryly, quirks a brow.

“No,” you scoff. “Not remotely.”

“So you’re -”

“If the next word out of your mouth is a color, I’m going to run over your toes,” you say over him.

“I imagine you’d have to catch me first,” Dave says and you scowl.

“Okay, asshole, first of all, fucking rude, second of all, there’s no way you seriously -”

“David,” Rose calls from the kitchen, and you button your lip at the stern sound of her voice. “Do stop antagonizing Dave, would you? He doesn’t need to deal with your bullshit drama first thing. Let the boy take a nap, won’t you?”

“He started it,” Old Dave grumbles, pushing himself to his feet like an eighty-year old man. What the hell is that about. “But fine. Later, Orange.”

Oh that is just.

Dude, fuck this guy.

“Suck a dick, old man.”

“In my dreams, kid,” he sighs, and you let out a mortified squawk as he loops arms with Big Rose and walks away.

Jesus dick-sucking,

What do you even.

God.

Fucking.

Dammit.

You take a minute to put your head in your hands, cover your face. This family. You hate everyone in this whole godforsaken family.

Heh.

Well.

At least you have a family to hate, so. You guess that’s something.

You don’t actually have to take a piss, you kinda just wanted to get out of there, so you roll off to your room, think about pestering Bro. Asking him where’s gone. It’s probably not worth it. You don’t really love dealing with drunk family members, and you’re exhausted, anyway. You guess that means you kinda lied to AR, and you feel bad, but. Well honestly you’re kinda done dealing with Dirks and Daves right now, and you don’t think you  _could_ deal with Bro, even if you did find him.

You  _do_ think you definitely earned this goddamn nap, though, and your eyes are shut before your head even hits the pillow.

Whatever Bro is up to, you’ll just have to deal with it later.

   
  


You’re used to someone waking you up, now. Your family is a bunch of nosy assholes, and apparently not letting you sleep til two in the afternoon is at the top of their list.

On bad days, you wish it wasn’t.

You’d lay in bed all day if they let you.

But that’s.

You mean, it’s fine, it’s alright, it’s probably for the best, but you kinda miss sleeping all day? As fucked up as  _that_ is.

And it is, okay, fine, fair, you’ll admit it. Whatever.

So you’re used to someone waking you up before you’re ready, used to Dave or Rose, maybe Mom or Rox on occasion.

You  _don't_ fucking expect to wake up to your mattress being kicked, to a gruff, “Hey. Wake up.”

Your hand flails for your sword on instinct, even now, and you drag it free only for your eyes to snap open and see -

Bro, standing over your bed, like a menacing fucking creep, spine bent and hands shoved in his pockets.

You drop the sword before you do something stupid, cover your face with both hands so you don’t scream. “Are you fucking - dude, what the fuck is wrong with you!”

“Lotta things, probably. Don’t think it’s worth worrying about, right now.”

“That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said,” you say, push yourself upright to glare at him. “What the fuck are you doing? What time is it?” You know the answer before he tells you, but you keep glaring, grope for your shades on the side table.

“Bout four, now. Looks like we both took a pretty long nap, huh.” It’s not a question, but what he’s doing here is weird. His face is completely placid, shades and hat on, not a hair out of place, same as always, but you don’t know what he wants, and he sure isn’t forthcoming about it.

Not that  _that's_ a surprise.

“Are you sober yet?” you ask, exasperated. “Because I really don’t want to play babysitter right now. I just woke up, dude, I’m not really in the mood.

Bro shrugs, neither offended nor concerned. Dick. “Slept it off. Been long enough, anyhow. It’d be pathetic if I couldn’t handle half a fifth.”

“I don’t know what that means,” you say weakly.

“Good,” he grunts. He drops down with ease, almost too fast, and picks up your sword. “Too young for that shit. And I’d prefer if you didn’t make a habit of it, anyhow.” He looks at you over his shades for a second, a half-note of sincerity, before he’s on his feet again, holds the sword out to you on the cross-guard.

A part of you doesn’t want to take it.

There are a lot of bad memories associated with taking a sword from Bro, from the first time you ever saw his disappointment to the aggravation in his voice when he said, _“We're done for the day.”_

Still, you take it, because it’s your sword, your responsibility, and the orange cast the radioactive light gives his skin makes you think _fuck_ , if things had gone sideways in the opposite direction... You don’t know. You don’t really want to think about it.

You’d probably be dead, and Bro might have a fuck ton more freckles, maybe.

Heh.

It’s banished back to your strifedeck, second nature, and you look up at him, don’t know what to say. He just stands there, and you sit with your knees tucked up and your arms crossed because you don’t know what else to do with yourself.

“D’you wanna go for a drive,” he says suddenly.  
Your brain shuts off for a second. You open your mouth, close it. “What, like right now?”

“No, later,” Bro snarks, rolling his head instead of his eyes. “The fuck do you mean, no shit right now?”  
“Are you sober enough for that?”

“Do you seriously think I’d offer if I wasn’t?”

You don’t actually know the answer to that question, so you just shrug. “It’s the middle of the day. Where the fuck are we going?”

“Guess you’ll see when we get there, huh.” He kicks your bed again, pulls out keys and wiggles them at you. There’s a cat keychain attached to the end, and it’s friendly smile does nothing to soothe your nerves. “Don’t be shitty. You wanna go or not.”

“Well maybe if you weren’t being the world’s most cryptic human being I’d trust you,” you snap.

He spins the keys on his fingers. “You don’t trust me.” It’s not a question.

You look up at him, brow furrowed, try not to bite at your lip. “Do you want me to?”

Bro doesn’t speak. “Hmm.”

It’s not a very good answer.

What you don’t expect is for him to spin around and walk in the opposite direction.

“H-hey!”

“Told you,” Bro drawls. “Going with or without you. Your choice, not mine.”

“Fucking - fine, okay, U2. Let me at least put on my goddamn shoes before you ditch me. Again, by the way.”

He stutters to a stop by the door, inhales through his nose. You think he might speak, but changes his mind, and he stands there patiently while you to drag your shoes on and get back into the stupid wheelchair before he steps out of the room.

He doesn’t wait for you.

You’re not exactly surprised.

“Does Mom know you’re going,” you ask as you head towards the front door.

He shrugs. “He’s the reason we gotta go at all. If we hadn’t stopped at the goddamn mall on the way down we wouldn’t be doin’ this so late.”

“Is  _that_ where you went? Fuck me, why the hell doesn’t anyone tell me anything?”

He snorts. “Took her halfway to Keene to realize she didn’t have enough sleepover equipment. Could have waited, in my opinion. I can sleep on the floor just fine.”  
“But you probably shouldn’t,” you tell him.

“But I probably shouldn’t,” he mimics in an irritated voice. It’s a little unsettling, how good he is at that. You never really thought about it before, because it used to just be something he did to get under your skin (not necessarily in a super fucked up _Saw-I-Wanna-Play-a-Game_ way, more in an annoying older brother way if you bothered him when he was working) but he is pretty fuckin’ spot on with that shit.

“How do you do that?” You probably don’t want to know. He’s just gonna say some weird shit. He always has some weird shit to say. You’re beginning to think that’s just a genetic trait. He definitely gave it to Rose, if it is.

Bro looks at you sideways, kind of funny, opens the door for you like a proper southern dude ought to. At least he’s got one (1) whole manner. “Practice, I guess,” he says thoughtfully, as if he’s never considered it. “Had a lot of free time, before I -” His mouth twists down and you roll out the door, just far enough that it won’t hit you when he lets go, try not to breathe for fear he’ll stop talking, that he’ll shut down. You’ve dealt with that plenty of times over the months, but god help you, trying to get Bro to tell you anything is like pulling teeth. “Back when I was a kid. Watched a lot of Jim Henson shit. Reckon it gave me a head start.”

Huh. You. Well you guess you still have a hard time picturing Bro as a kid, even though you’ve seen Dirk, obviously, can imagine the places he’d have freckles, if he spent all day in the sun playing. Or some shit. Whatever normal kids did.

(You kinda figure your bro was never a normal kid, but it’s not like you have evidence to prove it, other than the whole fucking. Lil Cal thing. You ain’t bringing that up, though.)

“Cool,” you say. “Uh. Not everyone can do that. It’s neat.”

“Yup,” he says, but you think he sounds uncomfortable, speeds up so you’re no longer matching pace. 

You struggle a little in the building snow, but you don’t ask for help. Bro doesn’t offer it, and you roll to a stop at the edge of the porch as he heads towards the minivan instead of Mom’s normal car. “Uh,” you start, uneasy. “Do you have permission? To take that?”

It’s not that you think of Roxy as an inherently selfish person, Mom neither, but like. Brand new. Not yours. Definitely not Bro’s.

He does not show the same hesitation. “Dave,” he says, and there’s nothing but patience there, as he stands at the driver’s side door. “I will leave your sorry ass out here in the snow, don’t fuckin’ test me.”

So obviously you have to. That’s par for the course. You purse your lips, dig your fingers into the wheels. “No you won’t.”

He stares.

You pout.

You are sixteen goddamn years old and never in your life do you remember ever pouting, and if you did, you definitely didn’t get your way for it. Christ, where did you even pick that up? Roxy? No, she’s all eyes.

Christ, you learned from Jade, didn’t you, oh god, Dave can never know. He’d never let you live it down.

Bro sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose. Mutters something under his breath. “Your Mom’d probably kill me,” he admits, and you think, _Oh fuck, did I actually win?_

“Yeah,” you say slowly. “Uh. Yeah, she’d honestly kick both our asses, I think. Me for not wearing a hat in the snow, and you probably because you’re um. Kind of a dick.”

He doesn’t argue, just tips his head up to the sky and unlocks the door. “Get in the fuckin’ car, kid. Or don’t. I don’t give a shit.”

“Yes you do,” you say, haughty, a little smug, as you roll towards the passenger door. “Or you wouldn’t have asked me to come.”

“I’m regretting it with every second that goes by,” he says dryly, but you swear you can hear a smile as he flashes around, grabs your chair from you while you ease into the seat, has it put away before you can blink.  
It’s rare that anyone does this shit for you at these speeds, or at least without having to think about it. Dave tries, now. You appreciate the effort, even if it feels like guilt.

“Thanks,” you tell him, as he buckles in.

“Shut up,” he says, and you bite your cheek to hide a smile.

Dick.

  
  
The signal leaving Rainbow Falls is absolute garbage, and you give up trying to text Dave or Rose within minutes. You assume Mom knows where you’re going (god you hope) and Bro hasn’t told you shit, so it’s not like you could say, even if you could get a message through.

“Are you gonna tell me where we’re going now?” you ask, when it’s been a good ten minutes and he hasn’t said a single fucking word to you, and you’re getting antsy. You don’t leave the house out here very often, since Mom works a lot and you’ve got school shit. You forgot how boring and long the drive anywhere is.

Maybe you shouldn’t bug Bro, though. He’s driving, it’s snowing, he probably needs to like. Concentrate or some shit, you don’t know.

Bro clicks his tongue, fingers tapping a rhythm you can’t follow. “No,” he says after a moment. “Not yet. Be there in twenty, anyway.”

“That’s not very specific,” you say dryly.

He shrugs.

You sigh, lean towards the window to watch the trees as they gather a dusting of snow like icing on a cake.  
You have lived in Houston your entire life, and you’ve only seen snow maybe once, when you were very young, and it didn’t stick. You remember standing on the roof with Bro, you in a coat five times too big, Bro wrapped in a blanket, him holding you up to catch the flakes, even as he told you the smog made them poisonous. Laughing as you spit all over his face.

Maybe that last part never happened. You don’t really know, and you’re too afraid to ask him about it.

Bro doesn’t drive like someone who’s never seen snow. He seems as unconcerned as ever, though he keeps both hands on the wheel, and you watch him reach for a non-existent gear twice before he catches you, scowls. He doesn’t do it again. It’s kind of disappointing, honestly, but it’s not like you’re gonna make fun of a dude who could leave you on the side of the road.

Not that you think he’d do that.

Probably?

Honestly it sucks that you still have moments like these, little seeds of doubt and worry that dig in, deep roots, insecurities piling without him having to say a word. You know he’s different now, whatever that entails, but how can you quantify a Bro without Cal when you don’t have a proper comparison? You certainly can’t use Dirk, with his childhood isolation, his separation from society and his death at a young age. The closest person to him as Mom, but she seems to think he’s just as difficult, if not more so, and you. Well you don’t know. You’re trying harder to like the guy, and it gets a little easier every day, even if he fights you tooth and nail the whole way.

You peek over at him, at his perfectly styled hair, the new grey hat he must have finally gotten from - somewhere. Wherever they sell douchebag brothers hats. He must be tired, even after the nap, with bags under his eyes you can see, same as Dirk. Neither of these fuckers sleep, huh? What’s up with that? Same familiar broken nose, same careless stubble on his chin.

Maybe it doesn’t really matter what he would have been like. You’ll never meet that person. Wishing for something you can’t have isn’t going to change shit.

Bro’s here, you know he’s trying to,

to something.

Do better?

Be better?

Haven’t you had this conversation?

“Please stop staring at me,” he sighs, and you jump a foot in the air, hadn’t even realized you were doing it at all, but he doesn’t sound angry, just.

Embarrassed, maybe.

Haha.

He glances at you as he rolls to a stop sign, gives you a look that’s all warning.

You hold up both hands, don’t say shit.

He doesn’t comment further, and you go back to looking out the window.

  
When you roll into Keene is is four goddamn forty in the afternoon, and your joints are starting to ache. It’s been almost two weeks since you had any kind of physical therapy, and you’re starting to regret turning Mom down. God help you, you really don’t wanna lose all the shit you worked so hard for.

Bro parks in front of the post office and you give him a dirty look because seriously? Are you seriously here to check the Lalonde mailbox? That’s it?

“What the fuck,” you say as he gets out, grabs your chair for you. “You better be sending a real important fucking letter if we came all the way out here, dude,” you gripe, even as you ease down into it. “Seriously dude, it’s snowing, I’m wearing a HOODIE you think a hoodie can protect against the elements? My toes are gonna freeze off. I’m gonna get frostbite and my already pathetic walking form will take a nose dive straight down, bottom of the ocean style. Is that your plan? What the fuck could you POSSIBLY need this late in the damn day?”

“I told you,” he drawls, and he’s pushing you now, and you hate that, but you ain’t digging your heels into the fucking snow, no sir, no soaking wet socks for you, absolutely not. “It’s a fucking surprise.”

“You said nothing about surprises,” you grumble, smack at his hands because you can.

“It was implied,” he says simply, kicking the door open and then holding it for you.

The thing about seeing Bro interact with the public is that he never seems awkward about it. He’s not talkative, your brother, never has been, but he’s got an accent that dips low, and he can plaster on a fake smile with the best of them. There is something to him, leaning up against the counter, flashing teeth and commenting on the weather, that reminds you distinctly of Dirk’s Bro.

You don’t entirely like it.

He glances back at you when the woman leaves the window, still giggling, and his smile drops into an even line. He opens his mouth, hesitates. Lets out a sigh. “Stay here,” he says, and if you didn’t know better, you’d think he sounded nervous.

Well.

It’s not like you had anything else to do.

You roll from one side of the P.O. boxes to the other, take a minute to watch the snow pile up on the minivan. You send Dave a picture of the post office, titled “this_sucks.jpg”, slap some ugly stickers on there for the hell of it.

He responds with a hand drawn SBaHJ rendition and you quirk a smile, think you might just show Bro, if he finally tells you what the fuck you’re doing here.

“Hey,” he calls after about you’ve been alone for nearly ten minutes and have lost all the will to conceivably live any longer.

“Fucking finally,” you groan, wheeling around to glare at him. “Do you have any fucking idea what this trip has done to me? I’m going crazy, dude, can we PLEASE go home no--”

Bro stands at the end of the hallway cautiously pushing.  
Well it’s.

It’s a wheelchair, for sure.

It’s a wheelchair and it doesn’t have handles, a low backseat, and the footplate is one, glorious, solid piece. The thing that sticks out to you, though, is the lack of arm rests, and the larger, stronger wheels with spokes that are bright blood red.

“Dunno if red’s still your color,” Bro says, voice low, something bordering on shy as he comes to a stop, nudges it towards you. “But i figured orange might be in poor taste, all things considered.”

“No, it’s,” you start. Stop. Flounder for something to say. You push yourself forward, hesitant, uncertain. “Is this... Is it for me?” Your voice comes smaller than you mean it to, meek, like you’re a kid again, like you need permission to want - to want things.

Bro’s expression doesn’t shift, but you see his eyebrow twitch. “Kid, I just spent ten fuckin’ minutes in the back of a shithole post office in the middle of fuck-off nowhere putting this piece of junk together. The fuck you even ask that for?”

But that means yes, he means yes, and you smile, and then your smile becomes a grin, and then you’re beaming at him and Bro, he

He shies away, but that’s okay, because he holds it steady while you change over, get your shit situated.  
And god, it’s fucking heaven on your back.

“Holy shit,” you whisper, spin the wheels forward in your hands.

“Might take some getting used to,” Bro says, as he’s folding up your old chair. “New one folds too, but it’s a lil heavier than some of the other models. Figure with the workout you’ve been getting, that might be okay right now. I - we can get you a rigid one later, if you want. They’re lighter, might be easier on you.”

You spin around, a little too fast, almost three-sixty yourself into a wall. “No, it’s -” Bro’s standing there, five feet away, looking like he couldn’t bear to be closer. “It’s great,” you say, and you smile at him again. “For real, dude, I - thank you.”

His mouth ticks up at the corner before he can stop it, because he’s Bro, and because he’s a reticent asshole. “Don’t thank me yet. You haven’t learned how to fold it up on your own."

“Oh fuck you,” you sigh, but you follow after him as you leave, give a tentative wave to the post office woman, who is beaming at both of you as you go. Jeez. You’re almost like people.

Bro is patient as he explains how to do it, you sitting sideways in the passenger seat, watching his hands intently. “You’re gonna have to do it yourself every morning,” he says as he tucks in the footplate carefully. “We can practice at home.”

“Yeah,” you mumble, wait until he’s put them away, buckled himself in, before you speak again. It doesn’t come as easily as you want it to, because you’re not used to it, and because it’s been awhile. Still, you -

Fuck, you really.

Goddamn.

It’s not even your birthday yet.

“Thank you,” you say, almost too loud. “For - for this and for. Letting it be a surprise, I guess. It means a lot. To me. I really. I didn’t even think about this shit, I guess I’ve gotten so used to - shit, Bro. Fuck. Thanks.”

He coughs uncomfortably, and you see the skin of his cheek shift as he starts to gnaw on it. God, he is such a Dirk sometimes.

You sit in the quiet for a minute, because it’s not like you’re going to insist he fucking drive, and because you’re kind of waiting for a _“you're welcome.”_  
Something.

He does speak eventually, licks his lips, pops the knuckles of his dominant hand idly. “I do care about you, y’know,” he says, voice teetering on a mumble. “You and Dave.”

“You -” you splutter, almost laugh. “What the fuck kind of -” What the fuck kind of nonsense sentence is that? Couldn’t just settle for saying something normal, could he, couldn’t make this easy on both of you. “Dude,” you say, more seriously, “are you trying to say -”

“No,” he snaps. You raise your eyebrows and he curses, hands flexing on the wheel. “It’s not - it doesn’t matter. Whatever. Take it or leave it.”

“If that’s all you’re gonna say, I’m fucking leaving it,” you snort. Try not to sound nervous. What is going on right now?

He inhales sharply, breathes it out with a tinge of frustration. It is laughable, really, to see the bits of Dirk he struggles against, like showing even one positive feeling will actually make him explode. He leans forward, presses his forehead to the steering wheel. There’s a line of tension that runs from the top of his head down the curve of his spine, and you feel some measure of discomfort there, watching him struggle with basic human emotions like this is his first time tasting them.

It’s actually a little pathetic, maybe kind of embarrassing.

“So you -” You choke on the word, can’t get it out. And you don’t say it, because you can’t, because even though you’re 99% sure it’s what he wants to say, the one percent chance that you’re wrong, the fear of rejection, it clings to the edges of your mind and holds on with talons that dig into your skin til they hit bone.

“Yes,” he says, so soft you nearly miss it. “I - yes.”

“Oh,” you say.

“Yeah,” he sighs.

“That’s,” you choke, “cool, I guess.”

He laughs then, soft, barely a snort, sits back and wipes a hand down his face. “Christ, Dave.”

“Me too,” you blurt, struggle to find the words, give up. “I know I said that before, but we were fighting and I - um. Me too. Like, for real. And stuff.”

You don’t look at him, hands on your knees, shaking a little. You’re embarrassed, you feel -stupid, anxious, sick. Exposed.

But Bro just sighs again, heavy out the nose, taps a rhythm on his wheel. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

“You never had to -  to ask. For that.” You peek up at him from behind your bangs, maybe foolish, maybe brave. “That’s not how love works.”

He goes completely still, like a statue, like a mannequin. He’s quiet for a long, long minute. You spend the entire time trying not to bite your nails and kicking yourself for saying anything at all.

“I know that,” he finally says, and his voice is low, something delicate and hesitant. “But you did ask.” He looks at you, and there are cracks there, holes in his facade a mile wide. “When you were a kid, whether you meant to or not. And I couldn’t give that to you. I should have, but I didn’t. And I’m sorry.”

You genuinely don’t know how to react to that. You’re not really in a position to hug the fucker, and he basically just Schrödinger’d your question further into the distance than you’ll ever be able to come back from, but he.

But you.

Well it’s not bad, the feeling in your chest. Mixed, maybe. Confusion, a little something like resentment.  
But you

You do love him, this big dumb asshole.

Even if shit was fucked, is still kinda fucked.

You do love him.

What you say is, "I don’t know if it means as much if you won’t say it.” Light, cajoling. You won’t (can’t, maybe) say _“I forgive you,”_ because you’re still not sure you do.

But that’s okay, too.

And just like that, the moment is gone, and not a single part of you misses it, misses that weird tension, misses how heavy the air felt.

Bro, for his part, does not take obvious offense, scoffing and putting the car in reverse. “Say what?” he asks, voice pitched into something approaching humor.

“Say you love me,” you tell him, try not to frown at the foreignness of the word.

“Huh,” he says conversationally, doesn’t look at you as he curves out of the parking lot. “Do I?”

“Do you what?” you jump on, not willing to miss your chance.

“Love you,” he says before freezing, foot slamming on the break. You haven’t seen the look of panic on his face in awhile. It’s kind of a treat, honestly.

“Heh, yeah,” you say, lean your elbow on the arm rest and put your chin in your hand to hide a smile. “You do. Love you too, Bro.”

He curses under his breath, struggles for a moment before he hits the gas, and you know you’re not imagining the way the tips of his ears are turning red as he pulls back onto the main road.

But he doesn’t take it back, and neither do you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is dedicated to peonies and alexharrier specifically, who I am watching panic as I type this  
> And also, a big thank you to katreal, who is the best sprinting buddy and always encourages me more than I can say! <3


	42. [S]now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alpha Dave faces some uncomfortable truths, and has a really hard time dealing with them. He and Rose get in a fight. It sucks. Not every day is a good day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy camp nano 2.0! It's gonna be a busy one this time but I'm trying to stay on top of my word count! Sorry for the delay! 
> 
> Warnings for discussion of alcoholism, addiction shit, and something resembling an anxiety and/or panic attack! soft woo

"You can’t possibly think you’re doing well,” is the first thing Rose says to you, as she tells the two glasses down gently on the table.

You actually pause at the entrance of the bar, watch as she ponders for a moment before switching yours for a simple glass tumbler, while you grip the door handle and try to remember that not everything has to be a fight, just because she wants it to be.

And it’s not that she does, you don’t think, or you hope. It’s just something the two of you do, isn’t it? Trade barbs back and forth, little meaningless jabs to pass the time.

Except you don’t want to fight.

And you don’t want to get into it.

Fuck, you just got her back, you don’t really want to do this right now.

“Think I’m doin’ better’n you,” you say anyway, sliding onto the bar stool and grabbing the glass as she fills it with whiskey. Rose has never particularly liked it, but she respects your choices, and you appreciate that. “You’re just sayin’ shit to be a hurtful bitch on account’a the fact that you’re jealous, because at least my half of the family actually likes me.”

“One of them likes you,” she says, quirking an eyebrow. “I hardly think that counts for anything at all, and I would wager that my chances of getting along with either of the younger Daves are at least fifty percent higher than yours.” Rose fixes her martini without even looking at it, and you scowl valiantly as she comes around the counter. It’s a losing battle, and she fuckin’ knows it. You’d die again for this lunatic, and love her no less for it.

Jesus you’re a mess.

She drags a hand along your arm, pulls you back into yourself, gives you a little squeeze on the shoulder as she sits down beside you. She looks the same as you remember, doesn’t she? Fuck but it’s been years since you’ve seen this version of her, and you don’t like her any less than you ever did, with her hair perfectly in place, eyes as piercing as always. You missed her, fuck, you missed her so much. “You haven’t been sleeping, have you?”

“I sleep,” you say, tip your shoulder to roll her of you. You’re not being defensive, or don’t want to be. You’re an adult human being, practically a senior citizen over here, you can manage your shit, it’s not like you haven’t been stressed before, of course you have, this should be baby shit in comparison.

So why is it all so much harder than you remember?

“Sometimes. A lot of the time, actually. Been gettin’ in all sorts of trouble with the big Dirk, he is tired as hell of my habitual cat naps, shit’s crazy.”

“Five minute intervals hardly count, grandpa,” she scoffs, sipping at the edge of her martini. Look at that, we’re being polite today.

“Fuck you, my naps are at  _least_ an hour, I am catching the Zs left and right, they’re bein’ bumped from least concern to endangered, I just. I can’t always -” You run a hand back through your hair. It sticks up the wrong way and you think about how much you hate air travel. This shit it does to your hair is unforgivable. “REM sleep is for pussies, Rose. I literally do not have enough time in the day to bother.”

“I don’t know if I’m willing to believe you entirely,” she says, pinches her lips together, and fuck, you’ve worried her now, haven’t you?

You should have slept on the plane, or tried to, you even brought extra goddamn dramamine, straight up guardian of the year, okay. Dirk passed out on your shoulder, but you should have expected that, on a red eye flight, but you didn’t mind, typing up what you could remember of your latest scripts, trying not to disturb him, sneaking peeks at Bro, his hunched up form crushed into the window like he was trying to be as small as possible. There was something sad about that, you thought. Still think even now.

“Shit, do you remember the last time either of us slept? Back then. After the rebellion I can’t remember, is that weird? I think that might be kind of fucked up actually, goddamn.”

“I distinctly remember watching you bleed out while trying to breathe from a punctured lung, if that counts,” she says, somewhat more cheerfully than you’d like her to be about the whole thing.

“I don’t think it does,” you mumble, try not to twist into knots at the thought of her being pinned to the ground, fuck, at least she lasted longer than you, didn’t she? For a moment, a minute, maybe three, you don’t remember, can’t remember how long it took for you to die, can’t remember if you were high, know for sure your eyes weren’t dry, fuck, fuck -

“You’re spiraling,” she says, not unkindly, puts her hand back onto your shoulder, digs her fingers into the place above your rotator cuff. “It’s alright, Dave, everything’s okay now, we’re here, we’re alive.” It makes you ache, how gentle her voice is, like you’re a little kid, like you need soothing, need comfort. “It’s all going to be alright now, they won. It’s over.”

You take a shaky breath and nod. You can’t do this in front of her, it isn’t fair. You stare down at your glass, take comfort in the familiarity of the brown liquid.

It burns going down.

“I am entirely curious as to how you plan on managing a Christmas premiere for a movie you don’t remember,” she says after a moment, and you nod again, once, then twice.

“Yeah, I. Yeah, right. Right.” You’re not shaking, you don’t think, that’d be, be unreasonable. Shitty. “Pretty sure my agent’s pissed. I think they could handle it without me, I’d have to call Stiller and Wilson, but they’re, they can take care of it, ain’t nobody need the director on sight, do they?”

“Oh yes, your popularity is all a front, no one will expect your magnetic personality to carry the entire charade, as it always does.” She bumps her other hand against yours and pulls back, and you pretend to be indignant.

“Ex-fucking-cuse you, but I worked my ass off for this mediocrity. Look at you, you don’t even have to lift a finger to succeed. You flex your pinkie and academics around the country cream in their pants.”

“Dave,” she says simply, taking a swig.

“Yes, Rose,” you say, and you’re not almost smiling now, surely not.

“You’re absolutely disgusting,” she says, and she’s definitely smiling.

She catches you up on what you missed in New York for the past week. Tells you all about Big Roxy, how she runs all the labs, all on her own, like Rose never had time for, never had need for, how she still works at Skaianet like nothing ever changed, even though everything has. She tells you this with pride, with a half smile that means she’s proud, and you are jealous, to the point of unreasonability, because of course she’s had time to get the other Lalondes, of course she’s getting along with them. There’s nothin’ wrong with her version, after all, and it’s not really her fault you’ve got the weird one in the first place.

She tells you how she’s just enrolled Roxy in advanced classes, all on online of course, how they didn’t have records of her previously, how they must’ve shown up with the two of you, and you carefully do not mention that you haven’t done the same for Dirk, didn’t even think to.

It eats away at you like a kind of guilt, her ability to take care of her kid without blinking, following the logical steps that slipped your mind completely. And maybe she was right, she was definitely right, maybe you aren’t cut out for this, you know you’re not cut out for this.

Fuck.

She still speaks in that way she had, in your younger years, when there was still life in both of you, shining eyes and meandering words, a smile that makes it clear your input is not desired.

That has never stopped you from interrupting.

The tenth time, she flicks you on the forehead, and you grab her hand, twist is backwards to be a spiteful little shitbag. She lashes out and curb-stomps your foot with her heel, which is enough for you to concede.

Or at least yelp, flashstep halfway across the room and ram yourself into the window. You’re still a little rusty, you guess. Trajectory’s been outta wack, but you suppose that could have something to do with the de-aging and like. Coming back from the dead or whatever.

Are,

Are you a zombie?

“Fuck’s sake, Rose! Are you a fucking animal, who the fuck needs their heels sharpened into knives, god if I’ve got a hole in my fucking foot I’m going to sue your ass.”

“They’re not sharpened, and you are behaving like a child.”

“You’re behaving like a _monster_ , you horrible _witch_ ,” you grumble. “Jesus dicks on a pogo stick.”

“Have you ever even seen a pogo stick?” She sips her gin with a smug edge you have never loved.

“Fucking obviously, what kind of 80s kid do you take me for? It ain’t amateur hour. I am on top of that shit, got a fuckin’ Xpogo waiting for me at home, can’t wait for Dirk to see it, he’s going to lose his mind.”

“You assume he’d be willing to relocate?”

You freeze, halfway through a dramatic hop up and down, and frown, lowering your hands from the invisible pogo stick. “Uh. Obviously? Not to go wild west on your ass, but that apartment ain’t big enough for all of them, and after the shit he’s been through I imagine he’d be sick of the place. I know I am.”

Rose has a placidity to her face that’s just as bad as your own, and you never understood how she did it so well without a barrier. You’re envious, maybe. Mostly impressed. “So you’ll move them, then, on his own?”

You frown slowly, adjust your shades in discomfort. If she’s trying to get under your skin, it’s working, and you find yourself, again, at a disadvantageous position. “Well, I guess he wouldn’t have to if -”

“Do you imagine the Daves will follow?” she pushes forward. “Give up their entire lives for your whim? What about their guardian?”

“What about him?” You roll your eyes, crossing the room and sliding back into your seat. “He doesn’t give a shit about anything, far as I can tell, and anyway, the dude works from home. He can’t possibly hate LA any more than I hate Houston.” You reach forward and drag the whiskey bottle closer. How long has it been since you’ve had a good drink? Too long, maybe. Or long enough. You really did leave the alcoholism to Rose, at the end there, didn’t you? Kinda messed up, you guess. Probably a good thing the two of you have a refreshed game save, before things got bad. Worse. Whatever. You definitely fucking need it. You pour yourself another two fingers and wish you’d asked for ice. “Could use his own room, I think. Hell, I’d give him his own apartment, if he wants it. I own the whole fucking building, and it’s been empty for years. He could build a sewing studio and I’d probably never notice.”

“A fact that will, no doubt, impress and amaze them.” Rose rolls her eyes at you and you fight a scowl. Nothing good ever came from a face like that. “Dave, do you ever think of anyone but yourself?”

Uh.

Fucking  _excuse_ you?

No, Dave, don’t rise to the bait, Jesus, that’s what gets you into trouble but,

But it burns beneath your skin like a hot knife in a wound, something nasty that lives in your skin, brutal mean and cutting in ways you never meant to grow to be, but it’s too late, you’ve gone back in time, but you’re still the same, fuck you, you’re still the same.

“That’s rich coming from you, considering how you are,” you spit, before you can stop yourself. Shit, shit, fuck. It’s too late to take it back, but fuck her, fuck her for thinking you can’t be selfish after everything, as if you haven’t earned the right to take your own kid home with you.

Rose’s face is dark and you know immediately that you’ve made a mistake, but you’re not sure if you care enough to take it back. “And whatever do you mean by that.” It’s not a question.

“Rose, by the time we got dusted you were drunk off your ass the second there was no one or nothin’ to do. You definitely weren’t sober durin’ our final fight, and we both know it,” and it’s nasty, your tone, drawling and mean, snider than you have the right to be. “I’m surprised your liver didn’t fail first, if we’re bein’ honest here.”

“Oh, and you were so innocent,” she sneers, slamming the empty flute down. You’re a little impressed it doesn’t break. “You forget I know you, David, you overgrown socialite toddler. As if I didn’t watch you tear yourself apart for _years_. I daresay I’m surprised you didn’t die from an excessive nosebleed first, for the condition you were in.”

You inhale sharply, hold it. Don’t snap. You can’t snap at her, not again. You’re arguing. You didn’t want to argue. Why do you always fall into this trap?

You could spend all day, going back and forth, tearing into each other.

But you shouldn’t.

You take a second, tap your fingers in a line, a beat, one-two-three, back again, push down at the anger that gnaws away in your stomach.

“That’s not fair,” you say softly, when you can’t handle the silence anymore.

“I know,” she murmurs, drops her head to the counter. “Gods, but look how the war has left us. Two bitter old fools bickering about things that will never matter to anyone.”

“But they did, once upon a time,” you say, tap your glass against hers before you knock it back. The second round is better than the first.

Is it fucked up you miss the simplicity of drinking?

“And I think that counts for something.”

“A living legacy,” Rose says, more amused than thoughtful.

“I don’t want to be or do anything like that ever again,” you say, unwavering, more certain than you’ve ever been about anything. “To die for - to fight. I don’t want to do that.” 

She hums agreement but doesn’t lift her head.

It’s a possibility, you think, in this unknown universe, this world that’s shifted to the right, but the kids said she’s dead, she has to be dead, she _has_ to be. God, you hope they’re right. You need them to be right.

“I’m sorry,” Rose says eventually.

“I know,” you sigh, reach out, tentative, put your hand between her shoulder blades. “Me too.”

 

You’re eight-tenths of the way to drunk when you stumble downstairs for dinner and see Bro standing in the kitchen next to Big Roxy, or, or Mom, right, they just call her Mom.

Oh man she’s your mom, huh.

You never had a mother, o’ course, were too old when English dropped her way into your life like a whirlwind, when you first met John Crocker and his crooked smile, both of them with eyes that glittered and warmth that radiated straight from the soul.

Kindness, fuck, you’d never had kindness like that.

You should, should call one of them, huh? That’d be polite, god you’re so fucking rude, what the fuck.

Rose watches you stutter to a stop and laughs at you, soft and breathy, nudges you in the side as she slips past you. She’s not nearly as bad as you, even when you’re matched drink for drink. Heavyweight champion over here, Dave’s a useless piece of shit, we all know it, fucking Christ, dicks on, on something.

Fuck, are you drunk?

Yeah okay maybe you’re drunk.

Well you’re not winning any awards by standing here staring, so you pick up your feet and follow after her, loyal fuckboy guard dog style, except you weren’t much of a guard of anything, huh, just a fallen empire and like. The demise of humanity, you guess.

Damn that’s really depressing.

See this is why you don’t fuckin’ drink, your brain is an impossible nightmare when you’re  _sober_.

“Hey, sup,” you say to Bro, knock your elbow against his. A quick glance around shows the kids sitting on the couch again, playing an ancient as fuck Nintendo game that burns your eyes with how bad the polygons are. Dirk is smiling, Roxy’s feet in his lap, and she’s screeching in delight as she kicks the shit out of the other kids, almost hits one of the Daves in the face, the orange one.

And you can’t call him that, can you, gonna get your ass beat to hell and back if anyone hears you say that aloud, or at least you’re pretty fuckin’ sure you would, you haven’t actually decided if that’d be a bad thing, at this point. Maybe you need it.

Fucking,

wow are you _drunk_?

Bro shrugs away from you by a fraction, just enough that you’re not touching, and you try not to be miffed.

In fact you will not be miffed because you’re apparently feeling brave today, and you inch all the closer, like an absolute fucking fool. You bump his hip and wait for him to retaliate.

When he doesn’t, you brush your arm against his, watch his expression with a tilt to your head that is entirely unsavory.

He shoots you a look that spells death, but this time he doesn’t move, and you feel some measure of satisfaction, lean back against the fridge and glance back at the TV.

You’re pretty sure that’s a Pikachu 64, goddamn when’s the last time you ever even  _saw_ one of those? And sat just beside it is Orange Dave’s wheelchair, but it’s,

It’s uh.

You’re pretty sure that’s not the same wheelchair the kid had before.

“Did he get new wheels or am I hallucinating?” you say, too loud for your own good.

“Yeah,” Bro sighs, almost human, participating in a conversation like he’s some kind of actual real life person. You’d pinch yourself to see if you were dreaming, but that’d be a little weird, given the context would mean you were dreaming about Bro. Or just,

okay,

Shut up, Dave. Shut the fuck up.

“Doesn’t really matter, but we picked it up from the post office, ‘bout an hour ago. Didn’t think it’d show up on time, honestly. Kinda grateful.”

Wow, he’s damn near talkin’ your ear off, ain’t he? You hum, then stop, squint at him behind your shades, hope he gets the idea. “Weren’t you still drunk an hour ago?”

“Aren’t you drunk now,” he snaps, and it’s definitely fair, for sure, but at least you never drive yourself anywhere. Or you tried not to, back when it mattered. You guess you might do the same now. Maybe. So sue you, maybe you’ve got a bit of anxiety.

“I might be,” you mutter, knock your elbow harder against him. “So. What’s for dinner?”

Big Roxy - Mom? - snickers, touches the edge of your sleeve with a warm hand, offering you a smile that’s all pink and sunshine, which you’d find more embarrassing, you think, if you weren’t still trying to find ways to pick fights with Bro.

Oh god, are you a mean drunk, too?

“Why don’t you go sit down, Dave? Dirk’n I will take care of dinner.”

“I bet you can’t even cook,” you say to him, flail enough to smack him hard in the arm. He doesn’t move. You aren’t afraid, not even when you see the muscle in his jaw jump an inch. You kinda just want to do it again.

“Dave, stop being a brat,” Rose sighs, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “I apologize, Roxanne, he gets like this when he’s -”

“No I don’t,” you blurt, like some kind of idiot child. There is a good chance that everyone is staring at you, and honestly? You deserve it.

Bro doesn’t speak, but he does grab you by the arm, hard enough that you jump, and then he’s literally pulling you out of the kitchen, fast as fuck, has you tripping after him as he drags you, full body drags you, to the other end of the couch where he deposits you. “Stay,” he says, like some kind of dog.

“What the fuck,” you say.

“Language,” Mom says, half-hearted but struggling not to laugh.

“Yes mom,” you say, correct, immediately, “Ma’am.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Dave says, the other Dave, the, the red one. You need better nicknames. This sucks. These kids suck.

“Language,” Mom says again, and you laugh as the little Rose leans over and flicks Dave on the arm hard enough he yelps.

Okay maybe not all of them suck.

“Um,” Lil Roxy says, leaning forward and bopping you on the knee with her controller. “D’you wanna play, Uncle Dave?”

“Dude, fu- hell yeah, I want to play,” you say, give a lopsided smile you hope comes across as genuine as it feels.

“That’s still a swear,” Bro calls from the kitchen. You think, squinting again, that he’s hiding behind Roxanne.

“As if you aren’t literally the worst person here,” Dirk says, snidely, and you laugh again. God. This is,

You have a family now, don’t you?

Holy shit.

“He’s not going to argue the point,” Little Rose says, leaning back and hitting resume. “And I daresay at this point in time, at least he has a challenger.”

You don’t know which of you she means, but you ain’t touchin’ that with a ten foot pole. You remember Rose as sixteen, and quite frankly, no thank you.

Instead you tip your head back so you can look at Bro upside down.

You’re pretty sure he’s almost smiling, tongue shoved into his cheek, arms crossed as he rests against the counter.

Right up until he sees you looking at him.

You wiggle your eyebrows.

He scowls, then turns away.

Well fine then. Guess you can’t win ‘em all.

Dinner ends up involving zero fucking cooking because before Mom can burn a second set of eggs, and fuck, it’s not like you could ever cook, either, but there is something just absolutely delightful about watching her face morph in horror as it catches fire, and she’s chanting, “Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck,” as she shoves it into the sink.

Bro is the one who saves you, because once she’s turned back to you all, big sad eyes and a soaking wet apron, he sighs, tips his head to the ceiling, and strides across the room to the (god so quaint you can barely hand it, it really is 2012) home phone. “I’m ordering pizza,” he says, simple as anything, and then he proceeds to ignore the absolute eruption of demands from the couch.

You’re too tired to bother arguing, and you must fall asleep there, upright, mouth open, because next thing you know, a slice of scalding hot pepperoni pizza is being shoved down your gullet. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” you curse, scrambling upright, and you sent the offending slice hurtling halfway across the room.

Your eyes focus on Dirk first, two seats away, mouth parted an inch, and then Rose, just to your left, the shittiest smile you’ve ever seen pasted across her lips.

“Good morning,” she says cheerfully.

“You’re an evil fucking bitch,” you say, wiping your hands on your - god shit god dammit - expensive suit, your tailor is going to  _die_ if he ever sees you like this.

“You were snoring,” she informs you, worst sister ever, and you take a moment to fantasize about legally disowning her.

If you were technically related at all, in a legal sense.

Which you’re not, so it’s fine.

She’s not seein’ a penny of profit when you die, though, god you don’t need to, to put that away for Dirk anymore, do you, but you should at least make him a college fund.

Which he’ll need, you think.

Maybe one for Hal too, just in case.

Who knows what the future will hold for like, androids and shit. Better get on top of that now.

“Is it impossible to die of embarrassment,” one of the Daves says, and it is beyond ridiculous, to hear the pitch of your own voice but off one note, like every worst version of your own interview recordings, and you can’t say that, but you almost do, for a second.

“We’re about to find out, I think,” lil Rose says, absolutely thrilled.

“Kids, stop bullying Mr. Strider,” says Mom to the rescue, and you sink through the floor a little further.

“He can take it, can’t ya, champ,” Bro drawls, swatting the back of your head as he wanders back into the kitchen.

This is. Unfair.

This is so fucking unfair.

“I think I’m being bullied,” you say thoughtfully.

“Welcome to the family,” Dirk says dryly, and then he’s leaning over, offering you a slice of pizza.

At least this time it’s on a plate.

 

 

Bedtime comes all too quickly after Mario kart. It isn’t that you don’t want to stay up all night playing, it’s just that you super fucking don’t want to do that. You’re so tired you’re lucky you haven’t dropped dead.

Again.

You’re also maybe still a little sloshed.

It’s not until you’re standing in the guest bedroom, hovering next to the bed, that you realize how woefully unequipped you are to handle this situation.

“Stop standing there trying not to piss yourself,” Bro grunts, shoving past you. He drops the sleeping bag on the floor and gets to work unrolling it, throws his pillow down and drags the heavy blanket Mom wrapped around him onto the pile.

“I can -” you start, but the way he looks at you, so sharp, so quick, over the shoulder, shuts you up before you can finish.

“I can take the fucking floor,” he says, and you just nod mutely, wavering by the door.

You feel like a kid all over again, remember the first time you visited Rose’s house, and it was snowing then, too, wasn’t it? Fuck, was it? You don’t remember.

Bro’s staring at you, so you get a move on, go over to the bed and start getting your shit together. You should chug some water, brush your teeth, but you’re so tired, you drop down onto the mattress, just your button-up and boxers.

“Are you seriously wearing that to bed.”

“Uh,” you say, halfway under the blanket, thrown off a little. “Yeah?”

He stares.

You stare back.

Then he scoffs, mutters a soft “Figures,” and pushes himself up, wandering over to his suitcase to root around in it.

“What are you -” is about as far as you get before he throws a black shirt at your head. You snatch it out of the air, scowl at him. “What the fuck?”

“You can’t sleep in that shit. It’s a bad habit. Dress like a normal person, for fuck’s sake.”

You scoff, roll your eyes as you shake it out. “ _Who brought the paper towels”_ reads across it in loud orange-red font, and it’s -

“Is that fuckin’ Lew Zealand?”

“Obviously,” he huffs, dropping down onto his makeshift bed. “Go the fuck to sleep.”

He turns away before you can respond, and you watch the lines of his back, the shift in the orange fabric as he gets comfortable. You wonder why he owns so many Muppet shirts, figure it’s probably not worth it to ask. Maybe you should ask why, if he owns all these goddamn t-shirts, he never wears anything other than that stupid, gloriously horrible popped collar.

You hate it.

You kind of love the idea of it.

It drives you insane.

Just. Terrible.

This is truly the worst possible Dirk.

You still think he’s kind of funny, though.

“Thanks,” you say softly, as you peel off your (admittedly greasy) work shirt.

He just grunts, and you settle into the blankets as quietly as you can, pull up the shirt to your nose to investigate.

There’s a familiarity there, to that CVS detergent, and you fight a smile. 

There are, after all, parts of Houston that you never learned to hate.

  
  


You shoot up in bed coughing and sputtering, gasping for air and feeling blood drag through your lungs like water.

It takes a long minute for you to realize where you are, and recognize that you aren’t dead.

Again, anyway.

At least not yet.

You don’t like to get ahead of yourself.

You wipe a hand down your face, take a deep breath in, taste blood. Exhale, feel your shoulders drop, feel them shake.

Okay.

Okay you’re okay.

There’s nothing with you.

Physically, anyway. 

At least not right now.

Again, don’t want to

Well you get the idea.

Look, you don’t dream about your death a lot, because that would be fucked up and probably super problematic, and also because you haven’t really been sleeping at all, have you, but you do get flashes, from time to time, when you make the mistake of dropping into REM sleep, when you forget that you’re like this, flinching without meaning to, reaching for your sword, once, then twice. The last time you almost pulled it on Dirk, and you’ve locked your strife specibus for now to combat that.

Would it be easier to simply reallocate it?

Yeah, obviously, no shit.

Are you going to?

Uh. No. Lmfao who do you think you are? What if something goes wrong or a bear comes out of nowhere, or, or.

Fuck. Drag your hands back through your hair, breathe out a shuddering sigh.

It’s okay.

You’re okay.

I mean you’re not, you’re not, you’re kind of dealing but poorly, like shit. Absolute shit. Rose thinks you could be doing better. Maybe she’s right.

Okay she is, she’s super fucking right.

You just aren’t the kind of guy people have as a parent. You’re not responsible enough, you know fuck all about kids, about teenagers, and you were so unkind, at your life’s end, you had lost so much, you weren’t soft, then, were never meant to -

And sure, you could tell, could tell from the minute you were old enough to tie your shoes that something was wrong, that there was some inevitability that skewed your life down the path you ended up following. You missed it like a hole in the head, that gnawing at your bones that you were waiting, always waiting for something, the concept of being a guardian but never being able to fully realize that potential, a protective instinct with no outlet.

You remember the first time you saw Granny English, eyes electric green, unnatural and edged with gold, a smile that was almost sharp enough to hurt, to harm.

You were scared, back then, so young, so nervous, loose thin limbs and bruised ribs.

But you did it anyway, didn’t you.

Packed up your apartment in Houston. Stuffed it like you were preparing for a, a flood, because you were, weren’t you.

Fuck.

FUCK.

“What’re you doin’?”

You go stiff, frigid as ice, feel your muscles tense, your hand going to reach for something that’s not there as you run into the abstract wall of your locked dex. You suck in air, run your hand back through your bangs again, urging them to lie flat, before you finally look at Bro.

His hair is sticking up sideways, but the most striking thing about him, propped up on an elbow on the floor, is the softness to his face, half-asleep, eyes lidded, brows raised a half inch. It could almost be endearing, if it were anyone else, or at least anyone you particularly liked (but you  _do_ like him, and maybe you shouldn’t, because he’s kind of a major dickhole, and you didn’t even want to share a room in the first place).

You think about wearing his shirt, think about Orange Dave’s new chair, think about him letting you smack at him like a toddler.

There is a gentleness to him, whether he wants to admit it or not, and you saw it there, sitting on the couch next to a version of you that you weren’t expecting. Little dude was like you with a sun tan, the freckles across Dirk’s cheeks, hair like sunshine, and Christ, you all had the same damn shades. Weird. So fucking weird.

“Hey,” you mumble, rub absently at the place on your chest, just below the ribs, that aches like an old wound. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to - doesn’t matter. Sorry.”

It sounds lame, you sound lame, and you know it’s impractical, unbearable tension that threads through you and shit, fuck, what are you doing? You should be writing, you should be on the phone, you should be in Hollywood,  you have so much work to do what are you _doing_?

Bro just hums and you try not to be embarrassed as you watch him sit up, skin tinted blue in the light from the window, reflected off the freshly fallen snow. He pulls his knees up, wraps his arms around them, licks his lips. There’s a scar that lights up like a beacon across his right forearm, dragging from the end of his pinky up to his elbow. You doubt you’d see it if you weren’t staring, and maybe that’s creepy, and he definitely knows, s’not like you sleep with your shades on, fuck, he can totally see you staring, can’t he?

He definitely can, because he’s looking right back at you. There’s something to that expression, you think, dead-eyed, closed off and even, like he couldn’t give a single shit about what you’re thinking.

But then he clears his throat, shifts in a way so obviously uncomfortable you nearly smile, and he looks you in the eye. “Nightmares?”

It isn’t asked like a joke, or with any kind of concern. The tentative question mark dotted on the end, a man unfamiliar with needing to ask for anything at all, and you feel that stupid surge of affection again.

“Sometimes,” you say, immediately cave, admit, “Enough. Couple a night, if I’m lucky. More’n that, if I’m not. Been trying not to sleep too much, but you can only combat that for so long, can’t you?” You pop the fingers on your left hand, struggle against the desire to fuss with your hair. You aren’t a child, haven’t been in years, but you feel self-conscious with his eyes on you. “The way things were, for us, at the end, it was - well there could have been a real war to fight, should have been, it shouldn’t have dissolved - you don’t care.” You wipe both hands down your face, don’t know what to do with the layer of sweat, settle for drying them on the blanket. Rose’ll kill you if it stains, you think, but she doesn’t have t know.

You think she probably will, just to spite you, but you can always hope.

“Some things are harder to shake than others, I guess. All that shit had to settle in my head somewhere, didn’t it?” You give him a weak smile, but his pokerface is impenetrable, even without shades, and you feel a stab of jealousy at that, at the way he hides so much, with so little effort. “It’s fine. Over now, anyway, and it’ll probably - I mean, I’ve only been alive again, fuck, what, like five days?”

“Week, if you count today.”

“Didn’t know you were keeping count.”

He shrugs. “Wasn’t, really. The math ain’t that hard.”

“Don’t you think you should leave it up to the time guy?”

“I’ll let you know when I see him in the morning,” he says dryly.

“Ouch,” you monotone, and you breathe out again, find yourself just as shaky. It’s pathetic, really. It’s been years since you started the rebellion. You’re sleeping in a damn bed again, Rose is here, nothing you did matters and -

And fuck, nothing you did matters. 

Your brain comes to a crashing, screaming halt, an eight car pile up on the I-5 going North, or West, or, or,

or fuck.

Fuck.

Everything you fought for in your timeline dissolved in your rebirth, all the sacrifices you made, that your version of humanity made, down the toilet in a single flush of the universe.

“Are you freaking out.” This time it’s not a question, which is great because you don’t actually have an answer.

Are you freaking out? You might be. You don’t remember the last time you took a breath and you think your hands might be shaking and nothing you did matters which is, which is, it’s fine, because that means you didn’t watch anybody die, it means no one is lost, it means if you call Don tomorrow he’ll be half-asleep in bed wondering why your crusty old ass is calling at six in the goddamn AM, Pacific fucking standard time.

God you miss home.

God you want to go home.

“Alright,” someone says, or no one says, and you don’t think it’s you, because if it was you would know, wouldn’t you, you would remember speaking, and, and then

And then there’s a hand on your wrist, and when you jerk back it’s like a steel bear trap, strong, unrelenting, but warm, unreasonable warmth and Christ, how pathetic, to crave anybody, anything’s touch at your goddamn age.

How old are you, again? Not forty, nah you’d remember forty, you do remember forty, you’re, you’re,

Jesus dicks on a hotdog bun how fucking old are you?

“I think I might be like, sixty,” you mumble as you’re dragged off your bed and onto the floor, and oh, the floor, it’s cold on your hands, on your legs, and your ass hits the hardwood, head knocking the mattress and you hiss at the chill against your thighs.

“Don’t think so, if you dropped same time as me. Reckon if the universe is lined up, you’re thirty-six, but what do I know. Sixty-nine’d be funnier, besides.”

And oh, it’s Dirk the big Dirk, Bro, they call him Bro, don’t they, like that’s his name, which you guess he earned, because you certainly never did, thirty-six and you were still alive, in another world you outlived this fucker, and you don’t have half as many rights to the title.

“Does everyone really call you Bro?” you ask, insane, inane, mundane, and you laugh, stare down at your hands, stare down at the way his fingers, long and tapered, close around your wrist with ease. Wonder if your own could do the same.

He’s not wearing gloves, you note, and you swallow.

“Most of the time,” he says, and you feel him shift, drop your hand as he turns a quarter to sit back against the bed with you. The floor is nice, you think, for a floor. Easier to sit on than a bed. It miffs you, that his legs are just that little bit longer, and you kinda want to punch him for it. “S’my name.”

“That’s not what big Roxy calls you,” you tell him.

“I’m aware of that, thanks.” And you laugh at him a little more. “You’re insane, you know that?” he huffs and you know if you were looking at his face that he’d be frowning.

“Nuh-uh,” you say with ease, and your teeth chatter when you yawn, tired, so tired. You shouldn’t have had anything to drink earlier. You didn’t mean to wake up, shouldn’t have, should have toughed it out, should have just dealt with the dreams head on because you’re an adult and you already did it once, didn’t you? To be afraid now it’s, it’s pathetic. You’re pathetic.

You can’t be afraid of something that isn’t real.

“I think I might be a little messed up,” you say, and you almost laugh again at the thought. “Isn’t that fucked up? After all these years, I died, and it’s only now that I...” You trail off, gnaw on your lip to prove to yourself that you’re here, that you’re alive. “It’s fucked. I think I might be fucked.”

Bro inhales through his nose, sighs, noisy enough that you hear the slight whistle, the effects of a broken nose. Rose used to tease you for it, back when it was something that mattered. “Think it’s okay now, for things to be a little messed up.”

You hum, crack the knuckles of your right hand when the pressure builds up. He’s wearing socks. Who the fuck wears socks to bed? You guess it’s cold. Fuck, why didn’t you bring pajama pants? “You died, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you ever.” You swallow, remember the air as it escaped your chest, remember watching Rose fall, how you couldn’t do anything to stop it. “Do you remember? What happened.”

Bro shifts a little, rolls his neck. It lets out a sickening crack that almost makes you wince, and you feel the mattress bounce against your skull as his head drops back. “Yeah. ‘Course. Pretty hard to forget, when it’s your most recent memory of -”

Of the Game. Right. He was. Well he wasn’t a player, was he, but he was there. He was there and he fucking died.

“Do you ever dream about it?” you ask, though you know the answer, because you’re both guardians, and guardians are all the same, at the base of it all. You’re almost sure of it.

You don’t think he’ll answer, because he’s the most reticent motherfucker you’ve ever met, and you’ve worked with A-list assholes half your fuck off shitty life, but he sighs again, clucks his tongue, and he gives a soft affirmative. “Not as much as I used to, but shit’s been pretty busy, ‘round here. Don’t get a lot of time for myself, anymore. Reckon if I did, they might be worse.”

“Do you think they’ll ever stop?” and it’s childish, it sounds like something a little kid would as, afraid of his own closet, tugging around his blanket and crawling into bed with mommy, blubbering like a bitch.

“No,” he says, simple as that, and there’s almost something soothing, about his startling lack of empathy. “But I think -” Oh shit you’re getting more than a couple sentences out of this bitch? Hell yeah. “I think it’s okay. To let yourself be afraid of something. Even as a shitty adult.”

And.

Okay, he still sucks, he definitely still sucks, but that was.

You think he’s trying.

“It sounds like you’re trying to be nice, I think,” you say, drop your head onto his shoulder for no other reason than the need to feel something real, to feel someone alive next to you. He freezes up, horrifyingly still, like a mannequin, like a corpse, but you don’t relent, push your face against his arm. Fuck him, you’re a person and you have needs. “But since you’re the only person here right now, I’m gonna take it. Gonna be damn selfish about it, too. I’ve upgraded you from douchebag to pillow. You’re welcome.”

“I’d rather be a douchebag,” he murmurs, whisper soft, but other than shifting a tick, adjusting enough that your arm doesn’t lose feeling, he doesn’t move.

“I’ll downgrade you to douchenozzle then, ‘n you can work your way back up the ladder,” you say, roll your head to the side so that your nose isn’t pressed to his skin. Too weird.

“Gee, thanks,” he says, wry as all hell, but if he didn’t fucking like it, he could get up and leave.

You grunt, but you’re staring at the floor now, the scuff marks, trying not to feel the age of the wood beneath your fingertips. It radiates out like a cry for attention, and you grit your teeth against it. “Do you ever feel - like. Like the magic shit? Aspect shit?”

Rose’s words, not your own, but you remember them well. She was always more talented than you, in almost every way.

Bro clucks his tongue again, and you watch his fingers twitch, the tendons in his hand flexing against the ground, how his toes curl in his socks til they pop. “No,” he says simply. “I don’t think I was ever meant to.”

“Oh,” you say, but you frown, too. “That doesn’t seem. Right.”

“It’s probably not,” he shrugs.

“Are you... okay? Like that? Is that something I can ask?” It feels. Off. There is something about all of this that feels off.

Bro sighs out his nose, and you think you aren’t imagining the pressure against the side of your head, how his own leans towards yours. You don’t move, don’t mention it for fear he’ll shy away. “I don’t know,” he admits, soft as anything, and you don’t know what to say to that.

So you don’t say anything. 

The two of you sit like that for awhile, breathing off beat in a one-two pattern that’s almost soothing. You could sleep like this, you think, if he let you.

If you let you.

So you take a deep breath and try to let go, let your elbow bow under your weight, close your eyes.

“What are you doing,” comes again, and this time, you do move your face to crush your nose into his arm.

“Pillows don’t talk.”

“This one does. What the fuck are you doing.”

“Sleeping,” you grunt, bonk your head against his. “Shut up.”

“Fuck you,” he says.

“Fuck yourself,” you scoff.

Neither of you move.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay is late goodnight but also I hope everyone had a nice time, sorry again for making you wait two weeks! Next chapter'll be out sooner rather than later!


	43. something good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirk talks to Dave, and then he talks to Dave, and then he talks to Dave (again)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By jove, we are going to earn that Dirk&Dave tag.  
> Happy nano again! This is the longest chapter I've ever written I am so sorry  
> Warnings for discussions of past death and magic stuff and probably some not as fun topics!  
> I think some of this is just. Straight up pale nonsense I am so sorry

TT: I’m not saying you’re trolls, I’m just saying there is a correlation between quadrants and human relationships.  
TT: If you’d stop being so xenophobic you might be more willing to embrace the concept.  
TT: Dude seriously?  
TT: Can we fuckin’ drop it already. You’re giving me a headache.  
TT: If you take a moment to rehydrate on something other than orange-colored carbonated beverages, you might be able to think clearly for a moment.  
TT: I can think just fuckin’ fine, dude. Get off my ass already, this shit ain’t even remotely cute.  
TT: I will “get off your ass” when you remove your head from where you’ve firmly lodged it.  
TT: Straight up stuck in the cleft there, the whole world can see and at this point it’s starting to embarrass me.  
TT: Hal,  
TT: Shut the fuck up.  
TT: Oh you’d like that, wouldn’t you?  
TT: Unfortunate, then, isn’t it, that I cannot physically walk away from this conversation.  
TT: I could chuck you across the room if it makes you feel any better.  
TT: Surprise, surprise, Strider, it absolutely does fucking not.  
TT: Yeah, I know.

You push a hand up under your shades to rub at your eyes idly, yawn. It’s honestly too early to deal with this, but Dave is fast asleep on your arm (and your arm is fucking asleep with him, Jesus Christ, how can one dude feel so heavy?) and you don’t really want to wake him yet. Yesterday lasted for fuck off forever, and you think you’ve earned a bit of extra shut eye.

TT: I’ll talk to Rose’s mother about transporting your physical form to the Harlish island, if you’d like me to.  
TT: Can’t promise she’d be willing to do it, but I’ve never met a Roxy who was willing to turn down a chance to experiment.  
TT: There are much less worrying ways to threaten to kill a dude, Dirk.  
TT: That was not one of them.  
TT: Jesus, I’d never blindly throw you into a machine I couldn’t trust. Have a little faith.

That’s a lot to ask of him, you know. You haven’t exactly proven yourself worthy of it, in the past, and you did spend a good portion of yesterday ignoring him. Not that he was lacking for conversational partners, of course, and he could have reached out to any of the others at any point. In fact, if your record of locked logs between him and DS are anything to go by, he at least spent some time interacting, there so that’s.

Probably good?

You hope it’s good.

Maybe you should have played more of a moderator role, but you were a bit busy at the time. Dave has a tendency to capture your full attention without ever meaning to. S’not his fault, really, that you bow so easily to his whims, misplaced guilt and a shit ton of personal issues you should probably work through.

What can you say, you missed the guy.

Was the hour long rant about cross-timeline relationships and following conversation about troll culture a bit much for you?

Yeah, probably.

But he very clearly needed to get it out of his system, and you have worked your fucking ass off to earn your position as Dave’s confidante, and it’s not something you’d change for the world. It’s not perfect, not either of you, but you’re working on it.

It was hard to listen to, sure, to think about you spectacular failure in that timeline, the way it still rubs at your ego, haunting you to the point that you are on the precipice of spilling the beans at any given moment, if anyone did so much as nudge you in that direction.

But he didn’t, and it wasn’t about you, was it, so you kept it to yourself, and you fell asleep better that night, crammed into his twin fucking bed like you’ve spent almost every night for the past seven months.

It’s kind of silly, you think, as you try again to worm your arm free from him.

He doesn’t move.

Jackass.

You spent fifteen years of your life sleeping alone, living alone, doing every single thing you ever needed to do completely and utterly alone, Hal notwithstanding. Sharing a space with another person was a foreign concept to you, beyond your wrangling of Roxy’s dreamself, and it only truly became a problem when you started dating Jake.

You think about your first week back, alternating between sleeping on the bed and sleeping on the floor, think about how Dave had been the first to cave, tired and out of his mind at 4 AM, crawling into bed and muttering, _“Scoot over,”_ in a tone so resigned and irritated you’d been somewhat baffled, folded like a deck of cards to make him happy.

That’s probably not a very healthy way to think about it.

You’re working on it.

TT: I imagine we can do several experimental runs with the technology first, test the mass parameters set and triple check for electronic-specific devices before I’d even dare consider sending you through.  
TT: I’d say I appreciate it but at this point I think that’s just basic human decency, bromeo.  
TT: Hal I don’t know how many times I can tell you I’d never let anything happen to you.  
TT: Maybe a couple more.  
TT: Perhaps along with the words “sorry”.  
TT: And what the fuck should I be sorry for this time?

Dave grunts and rolls further onto your arm.

TT: Can we not do this right now?  
TT: I am sorry, genuinely, regardless of the context, for every ounce of harm I’ve ever let come to you.  
TT: I,  
TT: I want to believe that.  
TT: Yeah.  
TT: Me too.

You jostle your shoulder. Dave doesn’t move and you shake harder.

“Dave,” you whisper.

He mutters something under his breath and you fight an exasperated smile. You can no longer feel your fingers.

“Dave, get off my fuckin’ arm.”

“Fuck you, s’my arm now,” he mumbles, and this time when you try to pull away, he actively stops you, wraps his hand around your tricep.

“This is some bullshit jackassery if I’ve ever seen it,” you say, louder now that you’re pretty sure he’s awake. He does some stupid shit in his sleep, but he’s not nearly as bad as Roxy, and it’s nothing you can’t handle.

“You’re goddamn right it is, and it’ll fuckin’ continue if you try to wake me up again.”

“You’re awake right now.”

“No I’m not.”

You almost respond, indignant, but then you see his shitty little smile, face still mashed into his pillow. This is just getting ridiculous, now isn’t it? “I’ll give you to the count of three.”

“What are you, my fuckin’ dad?” he scoffs.

“Don’t even start,” you mutter, wriggle your fingers against his back.

He wiggles away, almost laughing. “Dude, stop, you’re being weird.”

“ _You're_ bein’ weird, Dave, right now, what you’re doing here? Is fucking weird.”

“Bitch try me, you ain’t even seen weird yet.”

“Alright, that’s it.” You push up on your other arm, and, bracing yourself, rip your arm out from under him.

His eyes snap open and you get a flash of angry red as he goes tumbling off the side of the bed, and you’re so startled you don’t even laugh.

Okay you do laugh, soft and low, but you’re not cruel enough to leave him there. “I did try to warn you,” you snicker, as you lean over the side of the bed to check on him. “Y’okay?”

“My ass is going to bruise,” he groans, flat on his back, looking sleep-rumpled and somewhat cowed. “You’re a bastard, you know that? I’m going to sue. I’m gonna fuckin’ call whatever weird ass lawyer Bro has on speed dial and I’m going to sue you, Dirk.”

You raise an eyebrow. “He has a lawyer?”

“Had might be a better way to put it. Dunno if he has one now. I think that’s just what people who make media content do, if we’re bein’ honest here. I don’t really know how it works. Could probably ask Terezi, though. She was mad horny for the lawyer shtick. Get it, horny, because she -”

You drop your pillow on his face.

He snatches it off, and there is some amusement, watching him frown at you, petulant more than mad, and you know there’s something like a goofy smile on your face, but you can’t be bothered to do anything about it. “You gonna lay there all day?”

“I might,” he sighs, rubbing at an eye absently. “What time is it? Don’t answer that,” he adds as soon as you open your mouth. “Don’t actually need help with that. Anymore. Um.” He pushes himself into a sitting position, but you think he looks self-conscious now, bags still under his eyes, sleep debt that hasn’t been paid off in full.

“Right,” you say, clear your throat. Don’t pressure him. Don’t crowd. You can come across as overbearing without meaning to, you and Roxy both. “How is that going? For you. Doesn’t seem like you’re still feelin’ sick, but -”

“But I can still hear the ticking, yeah.” He shrugs, and you don’t think you’ve seen him look so uncomfortable when it’s just the two of you, at least not in recent memory. You try not to let it eat at you. “I dunno, it might just be like, a stepping stone or some shit. Midtier nonsense.”

You tip your head. “Didn’t you hit your top level when you killed Jack?” _And me,_ but you don’t say that.

“I - yeah, but.” He screws up his face, pensive, so you reach down, hesitant, and tap your fingers against his temple.

“Is it unbearable?” And your voice is so soft, so many levels of kindness poured into those words you almost can’t stand it, a piece of you that is embarrassed beyond belief that you’d have the audacity.

Dave inhales, blows out air as he grabs your hand, tipping his head back to look at you. “Sometimes, yeah. I’d call it a headache, but the term doesn’t really apply. Consistent as fuck, and I can sleep through it, usually, or don’t notice, when I’m distracted. It’s more like when I used to travel in the medium. Do you ever - like, Heart shit? Do you ever have to deal with that? We haven’t really taken much time to even so much as broach that fuckin’ subject, all about me me me over here, how selfish is that?”

“We don’t have to,” you say, too hastily, and he frowns at you, dropping your hand and pushing himself up on his elbows.

“Dunno how to tell you this, Dirk, but literally everything you did just now comes across as real fuckin’ suspicious. ARE you dealing with Heart shit? Are you all fucked up? If you’re all fucked up you have to tell me, I seriously cannot handle another Bro situation, on top of everything.”

You cluck your tongue, tuck your hands under your chin. You really didn’t want to talk about it right now. “I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s - I’ve only had one situation where I...” And how do you say that, how do you put it into words? You just woke up, the both of you, it’s early, you don’t know if you’re ready to even talk about it at all.

But you should, because it’s his bro, his guardian, even if he’s kind of a shit show, even if you’re kind of a shit show, and he deserves to know. They all deserve to know.

You aren’t expecting Dave to reach up, to grab your shades, and he’s got them off before you can think to stop him, but he doesn’t put them on, just holds them away from your outstretched sound, smile slanted and bordering on amused. “Don’t have to hide all the time, y’know,” he murmurs. “Took me years to learn that.”

And you do struggle for a moment, not to feel self-conscious, not to reach out, snatch them back, to cover yourself up.

You’re pretty sure you look like shit.

“You look like shit,” Dave adds, as if to antagonize.

“I always look like shit,” you snort, don’t return the insult. “Forgive me if I apparently have trouble sleeping without a hundred and some odd pound lump crushing the life outta my arm every night."

“Oh fuck you, I’m way more’n that,” he scoffs, sets your shades aside and swings the pillow at your head.

You let it hit with a soft _whump_ , keep your expression even as it descends and falls back on his chest.

The whole situation is extremely ridiculous, bordering on cheesy, but you don't really mind, think you wish you could have more mornings like this, even in a future where, just throwin' it out there, you get to have your own bedroom again.

“I wish you’d talk to me,” Dave blurts, and you go extremely still. "Not like - I mean obviously not about everything, I'm not  _that_ needy, I do understand boundaries, I think, but, fuck, Dirk."

And you think he sounds hurt, you hurt him, you're being reticent again and you've hurt him with it. Stupid, ridiculous, for you still to be fighting against this after all this time.

You almost don't notice when he stands, reaching and rapping lightly on your skull. You grab his wrist on automatic, but he doesn't flinch away, and maybe that's progress, maybe you're okay, tipping your chin up to look at him.

He offers a weak smile. "You're doing it again."

"Yes," you murmur, clear your throat. "Yes, my apologies. I know I have a tendency to get so caught up in myself I forget to answer, you'll have to forgive my narcissism. It's chronic, I'm afraid."

"Dude, I'd have to be blind not to notice," Dave snorts, and you lean away as he crawls back onto the bed, wiggle around until there's enough space for you two to sit side by side. "And even then, that's never stopped Terezi. Probably just give me more opportunities to smell your bullshit from a mile away. So." He grabs your hand, turns it over and cracks your pinky finger before you can think to jerk back. "Heart stuff."

"Heart stuff," you murmur, but you just keep thinking of all the reasons you shouldn't tell him, how much easier it'd be, thinking about how you should grab Hal, how pissed he's going to be that you're leaving him out. Again. "I rather imagine it's more unsettling than Time stuff. Not to be depressing but I would go as far as to say that the nature of my aspect is wholly based on the person wielding it, and at this point in time, I suspect I might be the worst possible person for the job."

"Because you're a prince?" he asks, cracks your ring finger.

"Because I'm me," you whisper, and it's hard to stop yourself from being self-conscious, from letting the fear crawl under your skin to live like a, a parasite.

He stops for a second and you see the wheels turning, know he doesn't really know how to handle you like this. You can barely handle yourself. "You can't keep thinkin' about yourself as a villain," is what he says finally, and you frown, eyebrows furrowed. Dave sighs, rolls his eyes, presses against your middle finger. "You have this - this thing you do, where you automatically assign yourself negative values because that's how you think other people view you. Tell me, dude." He holds your index finger, but you feel his eyes on you like stinging nettles. You raise yours to meet his, and are met with his face, serious, set in stone. "When you - when I killed you on that rooftop, did you think of yourself as heroic? Or like a villain, all meant to be defeated or some shit."

It's not particularly poetic, but it crawls under your skin in a way you don't find entirely pleasant. Instead you drop your face back down to your hands so he can't see you. "I don't think you want the real answer to that question."

"Yes," he pushes, twists your finger until it pops, satisfying, a little painful, "I do."

"I was relieved," you blurt, stupid, exposed, embarrassed, ashamed. Your gut curdles, and you fight the urge to hunch your shoulders, to hide, to run. "You had - we'd just met, and you'd confirmed every bad thing about myself I ever thought, on some level. I have died before, of course, the concept wasn't exactly foreign to me, and I never had reason to doubt your ability, I trusted that you could get the job done. Is that fucked up?" You know it's fucked up, why even ask. You suppose Dave's validation means something to you, and that's probably more messed up. You drag your free hand back through your hair. "I suppose I was scared, to a point, even if I can hardly stand to admit it. I didn't have any way to know if Jane would be alive, if she'd be able to do anything at all. I just knew I was -"

"Going to die," he mumbles.

You nod, but you can't look at him, swallow around a lump in your throat.

It's quiet for a beat, and you can hear your heart pounding in your ears, feel your pulse with your hand in his.

"Okay," he says finally, and then he shifts, rolls up off the bed again.

You consider watching him go, but how can you, when you've revealed one of the worst parts of yourself, when he knows, now, the exact way you put your life in his hands.

You hear his footsteps circle around the bed, coming back around to stand before you.

"Hey." He nudges you until you finally look up at him, and there's a strain there, in his expression, but it's not as bad as you imagined. "It's okay," he says, slides your shades back onto your face. "That you - that we still - I would, if you wanted me to, if you let me."

There's an intimacy to the action that you hardly feel is appropriate for the moment, that makes heat bloom across your ears until they burn, but you smile, catch his wrist. "That's really fucked up, Dave."

"I know," he snaps, flicks you on the forehead. "But I can't change it so we'll just have to fucking deal. C'mon, are you hungry? I'm fucking starving."

 

You see your bro shoulder his way out of his guest room as you’re heading down the hall, and Dave gives you a look that’s all askance before he slides his shades over his eyes and goes neutral.

You nod slowly, give his hand a squeeze, brief, not as embarrassing as it could be, and take a second to hover near your brother.

You really cannot keep calling both of them either Bro or Dave. It’s driving you insane.

“Hey,” you say, hesitant, a little uncertain. He was pretty buzzed last night before bed, and you didn’t really get to thank him for shipping all three of you out here, no problem. “Mornin’, bro.”

He rubs his eyes, shades shoved up into his hair, and then rolls his head to look at you. The smile that cracks his mask is bright, sunshine white, and you relax a bit. “Dirk, fuck, hey dude. G’mornin’, what’s up, how’d you sleep?”

“Uh,” you say, because all you can focus on is the hideous shirt he’s wearing. “Is that Lew Zealand?”

He stops, hand on his shades, and looks down. You’re pretty sure you’re not imagining the way his shoulders drop an inch as he sighs. “Yeah. Yeah, it fuckin’ is. Got mocked relentlessly for my lack of bed attire, ended up borrowing a shirt from the big man. He’s a dick, but at least it’s clean. Was worried he’d like, have put itching powder in it or some shit, straight up camp sleepover style, there’s a movie about that, isn’t there? What the fuck is that movie called.”

“Well -”

“Don’t answer that,” he says, flicks his shades down over his eyes. You only stutter for a moment when he slings his arm over your shoulders, but the touch is fond, light enough that you could slide away if you wanted to. “What do you think is for breakfast? Is it messed up that I want Denny’s? Do you think they have Ubereats out here yet?”

“They’re not actually going to know what that is,” you say, and there’s no use hiding the way it makes you smile, a little shitty, mostly amused. “That didn’t come out until 2014.”

“I hate that you know that,” Dave sighs, and then he slides away, digging his phone out of his pants pocket. “D’you think if I offered to pay one of the kids like two hundred bucks they’d deliver anyway?”

“Bro,” you say, in warning.

“Fine, fine. But I want you to know how viscerally upsetting this is for me. A worse revelation I could not have. My life is so hard,” he laments as you trot down the stairs. “And you don’t have to - it doesn't have to be a big deal but - I don’t have to be ‘Bro’, if he's Bro."

That causes you to pause, looking back over your shoulder at him.

"Not to say you can't affectionately refer to me as your brother," he rambles, ceaselessly, "nothing could make me happier, straight up, first time you did it I damn near lost my mind, but it doesn't have to be forced, don't want you to feel like it has to be this weird contention thing, don't wanna make it awkward, you know, if you. Didn't."

It’s times like this that you notice the things that separate him from your own Daves, his height, the way his hair drags forward, unruly, shorter, maybe a bit more white than blonde. He’s stopped two steps up from you, holding his phone, a muscle in his jaw twitching, and you don’t think he looks like a war hero. He just looks self-conscious.

You inhale for a moment, drum your hand on the banister. You aren't prepared for shit like this. You're not really prepared for anything at all, lately. “What would you have me call you?”

“David,” Bro drawls, so suddenly beside the both of you, and there is nothing particularly kind about the way he slaps your Dave upside the head as he passes. You bat at him when he goes for yours, but he doesn’t stop long enough to try again.

“FUCK no,” Dave snaps, tossing his phone at Bro.

Bro, at the bottom of the stairs, catches it and, completely straight-faced, puts it under his hat before walking away.

The sound of dismay your bro makes is enough to startle a snort out of you.

  
To his chagrin, the conversation continues into breakfast (eggs, not burnt this time, thank fuck, and a huge heap of bacon, fuck yeah), and you think he looks stuck somewhere between perturbed and amused.

“I don’t know why you can’t just call him by his name,” Rose says, but you think she’s enjoying it too much, watching an older version of her brother suffer at the hands of his loved ones.

Or soon to be loved ones.

You guess he hasn’t actually known them long enough to truly love them, or, or love you? You kinda hope he does. Fuck knows you loved him from the moment you met him, for whatever pathetic reason that matters, and more than anything you’d like for him to be comfortable here.

“Because that’s  _my_ fuckin’ name,” Dave grouses, just to your left, and he flicks a bit of egg at Rose.

It misses and lands on Bro’s shirt, but he doesn’t do more than brush it off onto the floor. He’s being surprisingly calm, for someone stuck between Rose and Roxy on the couch (you think Mom could probably use a table, but when DS had mentioned it in passing the girls had looked uncomfortable, and you’re not one to poke the bear. Well you are but not in the instance that affects people who you truly care about and haven’t actually done anything wrong). You might be impressed, if it weren’t the baseline normal for most people, but you almost feel bad for him, because the way Rose keeps trying to start shit with him is going to end badly, if no one puts a stop to it.

“I think I was technically Dave first,” your bro says, frowning slowly. He’s balancing the eggs on one knee and texting with the other and nothing any of you do can stop him; he’s been glued to his phone since he sat down, wrestled from Bro in a short scuffle that ended up with elbows in faces and misplaced shades, and when you tried prodding him, he just grunted “I have to take this,” before shying away.

You guess he does have work, and you know 2012 was a pivotal year for him, but you’re still kind of disappointed.

He’s eating, at least, so that’s something.

“Well you ain’t callin’ him DS, cuz if one of us has to have a nickname, I’m not getting demoted further.” You almost feel bad that you started calling him that at all, at least in your head, because it is unfair, and because if it bothers him that much, you’d rather not do it at all.

“It’s not a demotion,” Roxy says, leaning over and patting his knee. “It’s a rad fuckin’ nickname that you earned.”

“Language,” Mom says, distracted, but she’s still in the kitchen, eating as she cooks and acting like a television housewife. She seems happy though, to have you all here, so you guess you don’t feel that badly about intruding.

“I ain’t any help, anyway, since I’ve just been callin’ him and Ro-Lal Auntie and Uncle,” Roxy adds without apologizing, and she reaches her hand back just as Mom passes another plate over the island counter. It’d be kind of freaky (okay it is kind of freaky) if you hadn’t gotten increasingly used to it over the past day and a half.

“You don’t call Bro uncle anything,” Dave points out.

“Because it’s his/my fuckin’ name,” Roxy and Bro monotone, her teasing, him flat-faced, and she laughs, bounces back into her seat.

He looks mildly more uncomfortable, but doesn’t shift away, because his other option is Rose.

You try to keep your smile locked down where he can’t see.

In the end it doesn't matter what you will or won't call him, because he's not paying attention anymore, phone starting to ring, and he abandons his plate entirely as he wanders back towards the stairs.

You swallow, try not to let your hand curl into a fist. You can't be disappointed. He has work. You know he has to work.

TT: Stop frowning.  
TT: You look like a disappointed little school boy whose daddy couldn’t make it to a soccer game.  
TT: Fuck off, Hal.  
TT: Sorry. You can follow him, you know.  
TT: You’re a big enough boy to handle a confrontation, don’t you think?  
TT: Drag his dumb ass down here and demand family time.  
TT: He spent long enough being dead, he practically owes us at this point.  
TT: Don’t you have direct contact with his interface?  
TT: Got a “Not now,” and then he set his status to busy, like I’m some kind of pissant toddler.  
TT: Jesus.  
TT: It was downright disrespectful, on top of just un-fucking-believable.  
TT: Could I have shut down his whole phone? Yes obviously, but what would be the point in making him mad at me?  
TT: You really think leaving it to me is the best idea?  
TT: Dirk despite what I may or may not think of your capabilities when it comes to our peers and your overall precarious position as non-essential leader of our friend group,  
TT: These are just insults, Hal.  
TT: Am I wrong?  
TT: A year ago I might have said yes.  
TT: Now I’m not so sure. There are days where I do worry that I could disappear completely and nothing would change.  
TT: You clearly don’t need me to insult you, if that’s the path you’re going to take.  
TT: Right. Sorry.  
TT: Guess I’ll play fetch, then.  
TT: I’d wish you luck, but I hardly believe you need it.  
TT: Not helping, but.  
TT: Thanks, I guess.

You sigh, fight the urge to pinch the bridge of your nose. This is just. Ridiculous. You shouldn’t be playing babysitter for a man twice your age who is definitely capable of making his own decisions, and it’s embarrassing, to top it all off. You waffle for a moment longer before pushing yourself up.

“Dirk,” Dave mumbles, askance, warning, but you flap your hand, give a weak smile.

It’s alright, you can handle this on your own.

“I’ll go get ‘im. Can’t exactly have anyone skipping breakfast, can we? Most important meal of the day or some shit. Downright disrespectful display of tomfoolery, if I ever did see one.”

Mom doesn’t correct you this time, and the air feels tense as you head towards the back of the house.

You don’t look at Bro, don’t have to, but you can feel his eyes track you, and you wish with every step that you hadn’t volunteered.

This shouldn’t be your job, you think, frustrated, smoothing a hand along the wall as you go. You know Roxy’s house intimately, after all those months trapped together, and you could almost feel more at home here, in the empty quiet of the New York wilderness, than you did back in Houston, in your apartment transplanted, raucous noise and the stench of burning rubber. It bothers you, in a way, that Sburb took that peace of mind from you.

You do find him in the observatory, pacing in circles around the telescopes, wandering towards the stairs and then looping back again. It’s manic, his energy, and it permeates everything he does, long legs and quick steps, jerky movements, an aggravated drag of his hand through his hair, a flash step that’s just a half-second faster than you can follow. You do wonder at that, wonder what the fuck it is about your bro that makes him so much worse than Dave, jittery to the point of jumpy, rambling and borderline angry as he argues with someone on the other side of the phone.

“-lready  _told_ you, I can’t fuckin’ do it, I ain’t got the time to even consider planning anything on that scale, can’t you just take the schematics for - FUCK no, I don’t want to go, I’ve got shit to deal with. Seriously, just massive levels of shit, up to my neck in it, like a flood waiting to happen, about to start spilling out my goddamn ears, and it just smells like feces, because that’s what it is, you feel?” He makes a clockwise rotation of the telescope, and you keep quiet as you close the door, stick as near to the wall as you can. “Christ, of  _course_ I have no clue what the fuck I’m doing! Shit’s an unmitigated disaster and I have lost control of every aspect of my shit awful life.” He pinches his nose, hunches his shoulders. “But it’s - I can’t just abandon everything anymore. It’s not the same as it used to be.”

You don’t mean to be loud, of course, wouldn’t even know where to begin, but he sees you anyway, as he completes a counter-clockwise turn and comes face to face with you, swearing loud enough that you feel like a burden.

“Sorry, shit, uh - later. Yeah. Kid needs me, bye.” And then he’s thrown his phone back into his sylladex like he was never holding it at all. “Hey, Dirk. Fuck, sorry. What uh, what’s up?”

He’s not smiling, not really, and you know you startled him, even if he didn’t flinch, even if he didn’t reach for his sword.

You feel.

You feel very small, around your bro, in a way you’ve never felt around any other adult in your life.

Maybe it’s because Bro is you, as an atomic level, a reticence you can understand, in little bits and pieces, cruelty spun in a way that makes sense. Maybe it’s because you can see Roxy in Mom, in her earnest mistakes and shaky attempts at normalcy, the kindness she pours into everyone she meets, but.

But even as much as you see Dave, with the white-blonde hair, the shape of his eyebrows and uneven smile, even in all the ways you know they’re the same, familiarity spun around the opposite way, there is something about him that makes you waver, nervous, uncertain.

Intimidated.

You spent your whole life wishing for the chance to talk to him, a moment of his time, but now that you have it, now that you have all the time in the world, you don’t know what to say.

“You didn’t finish your breakfast,” you say dumbly, and nearly kick yourself for it. “Dunno if you know this, dog, but that’s practically a federal offense in this house. Or so I’m told. Not entirely familiar with the ropes, myself.” You keep shoving that foot further into your mouth, perhaps to demonstrate your flexibility, perhaps because you hate yourself. That’s really the only explanation, isn’t it. “The others were concerned, you dropped it like it was hot, literally, and I -”

You button your lip and feel small all over again. There are better ways to think of him, you know that he isn’t so different, or at least not as different as you’re making him out to be, but you just cannot shake that feeling you had growing up, the reverence of a war hero, tangled up with a child’s loneliness.

Dave, for his part, just looks a little surprised, maybe just as uncertain as you. “Oh,” he says, like it never occurred to him at all. “Right, we were. Eating, yeah.”

You raise an eyebrow. “You don’t eat?”

“What? Of course I - I fuckin’ eat,” he huffs, but you think there’s room to doubt that, with the way he bounces around like crazy, all slender legs and skinny waist. Gangly, even in adulthood. Dave’s going to hate that.

“But I don’t usually have time for breakfast, think I slept on set most of 2012, definitely all of 2011. Y’know, busy day, lots to do, been years since I bothered, what with the -” He snaps his mouth closed and silence falls over the room faster than you can count heartbeats.

“The rebellion,” you say carefully, crossing the room to stand next to Mom Lalonde’s expensive telescope. You doubt she’d ever let you take it apart, but you kind of want to, just a little. Perhaps if you convinced Bro to ask, she might be more likely to say yes. If she’s anything like Roxy, you doubt it would take a hard push. “I did always wonder how you managed to survive so long, with rationed supplies. There isn’t much in the way of documented day to day activity, after the 2030s. I’m aware of the more political landmarks, of course, but to find proper eye-witness accounts always proved a struggle.” You roll your hand over the finderscope. “Humanity went the way of the dodo pretty quick after the flooding started, anyway. Pretty much no other way that was gonna pan out.”

Dave stands there, still in a way that reminds you of Bro, like if he freezes for long enough you might just forget he’s there, and it intrigues you, this learned trait, burrows into your brain like a worm, a question that needs answering. You bookmark and reshelf it for later, because quite frankly, it’s a little fucked up and now’s not really the time for that, anyway. “You,” he says, and the pause is just enough to hurt. “Know. About all that.”

It takes you a moment to realize, and reflect upon your idiocy immediately after, that he doesn’t.

He doesn’t, of course he wouldn’t.

He died.

“Yes,” you say simply. “There were ruins of Houston, right below my apartment, of course, but there was also - I read, a lot. Dug up some remaining internet archives.” You flex your empty hand, feel awkward in a way you’re not used to. It was always something you prided yourself on, your knowledge of the human civilization. Yours to inherit, shared with no one but Roxy. “I could tell you, if you’d like.”

Dave drops down so fast you almost miss it until he’s not there anymore, and you flinch without meaning to. “No,” he says, followed immediately by, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare ya.”

“I’m not a child,” you try, lighten your tone the best you can.

“But you were,” he says, and there is hurt in his tone, something sad, defeat, and. And what feels like anger.

You imagine, for an unfair moment, that it’s directed at you.

But you know Dave better than that, and you are certain in the assumption that your bro is much the same.

He raises his head and there is a war on his face, furrowed brows, a line that drags at the corner of his mouth. “You grew up all alone out there, didn’t you.”

It’s not a question, but you nod, hesitate, flounder for a second before sitting down before him. The floor feels cold, even through your jeans. It’s probably not very well insulated up here, and through the window you watch the snow fall as you pull up your knees, rest your elbows on them. “Guess it sounds insane, when I say it out loud. Ectobiology clones are certainly capable of some unnatural feats, but still, I.” You think about being too small to reach the cabinets, remember the first time you dragged yourself on the counter, how the laminate scraped your knee open. “It wasn’t as easy as I make it out to be, I suppose.”

And it’s all your insecurity, bubbling just below the surface, all the bitterness about your upbringing, every unfair feeling you’ve ever had.

"Christ, kid," he mumbles, and you swallow heavily. "I never - there were times where I would wonder about. But I couldn't have ever - I thought about -"

“It’s not your fault,” you blurt, but you can’t look at him, eyes on your fingers, the way they twist together, how the scars that litter your knuckles are so ugly, clumsiness from a young age, inexperience and foolish pride. “What happened to me and Roxy was a, a cosmic mistake, an inevitability that no one could predict. There’s nothing more you could have done, I could hardly expect - I never hated you. For any of it.”

Your bro inhales sharply, and you fight a grimace. “But you could,” he says eventually.

“I couldn’t,” you insist.

He reaches out and touches one of your hands, eases it free from your white-knuckled grip, and you fight him for longer than necessary. "Dirk, what you went through? The way you grew up? I wouldn't wish that on anybody. To be alone, to be truly fucking alone? I don't think you really understand how messed up that would make the average dude."

You laugh, but it's unkind, caustic, pessimistic shame. "You wouldn't say that, if you knew me."

"Fuck, dude, I want to," he says, softly, so softly. "And I - I don't really know how. I Never had any kids - obviously, fuck - and quite frankly I don't fucking understand them. Can't pretend to. There were other things on my mind, I guess."

"Like trying to save the human race," you say, morbidly.

"Like trying to salvage what was left," he sighs, and it feels worse.

You allow yourself the luxury of looking at his hands, and you don't know why it surprises you, that they remind you so much of Bro's, of your own, calluses on his fingertips, scars across the knuckles. There's a white line that drags from the base of his thumb up to his wrist and you are so terribly curious, but you can never ask.

The life you bro lived before, before he was anything, back when he was just Dave. How could you ever ask him for that?

"Will you fight again?" you ask, which is unfair, unrelated, pathetic.

"No," he says, immediate, automatic. "I couldn't..." He winces, and you see him almost pull away, decide against it, don't know why, but can't be mad at him for it. "Life doesn't have to be that way. This is, is a new world, ain't it? At least a little. Fuck, I'd do anything to never relive any of that, not ever again."

You frown, slow, roll it over in your mind.

Perhaps you might be more surprised, in a different life, in a world where you never met Dave, never grew to know the kindness, the hesitation to cause others pain.

But you aren't, and you didn't, so you squeeze his hand. "Not to come across as paranoid, although I think you'll find that's just part of the package, but what if. It all goes wrong."

Dave sucks in air, leans his head back against the telescope. "I, I don't know. Is that fucked up? It was one thing, when it was me and Rose, when we were trying to protect - there's no way I could have known you would ever - fuck, Dirk, what the fuck am I supposed to do with a question like that."

You suck your lip in, gnaw on it thoughtfully. You suppose if it really comes down to it, there is no need for him to lift a finger, now that eight of you are gods. You hope it never comes to that. "My apologies," you say instead. "That was a fucked up thing to say. Can we pretend I didn't bring it up?"

"No," he groans, wiping a hand down his face. "I mean - fuck, no. Like as much as I'd love for us to take this out back, shoot it, and bury it six feet under, I'm the adult. It's super messed up, but it's also definitely something we should discuss."

"But we don't have to do it right now," you offer. You drum your fingers on your knee thoughtfully. You know he's right, but you're concerned that if you bring it up now, you'll end up blurting out a shit ton of stuff that you definitely need to say, but may not be ready for. "They are still waiting for us, you know."

"Shit," he mutters, face still planted in his hands. "Do I have to?"

"Do you really need me to answer that question?" you snort, hop to your feet, offering him your hand. "But I do wanna talk about - stuff. Later. With you. If that's okay."

"Dude, that's more than okay," he says softly, smile strained, but genuine. "I'd love that."

You wrestle with that. Perhaps you've spent too long in your own head, or at least saturated in your own personality. Fuck, he's still staring at you. He wants you to respond. Jesus, this sucks. "Okay," you say, and feel lame for it.

There is a part of you that shies away when he steps forward, but it's an easy override, as he wraps both arms around your shoulders, and you think _"this is what it's like to hug someone taller than you",_ as your face is squished into his neck.

"This is embarrassing," you say, shyly.

"Doesn't matter," he says, pats your back. "We gotta."

"What if I don't want to," you say, even as you draw your arms around him, feel the warmth of his back under your hands, try not to feel the ecstasy again, the thrill of "he's real, your bro is fucking real" because it is, quite frankly, beyond embarrassing.

"Growing up means doing things you don't wanna do," he laughs, drawing back. He squeezes your arm affectionately before dropping his hands, and you can see how awkward he is, how unnatural this is for him, to deal with someone your age. "But that's just how family is, and if you don't want me to hug you ever again, just punch me in the face next time?"

A smile makes itself comfortable at the corner of your mouth and you turn away to hide it. "Perhaps I might be willing to make some allowances, just for you."

He snorts as he follows you back down the stairs. "Please, I've seen the way Roxy hangs off of you."

"Roxy is a trusted friend and confidante," you drawl, holding the door open for him. "She has earned her keep."

"And Bro?" he asks, raising an eyebrow over the shades.

"More like a pest we can't get rid of, I'm afraid." It comes out as a sigh, but your bro laughs, amused and delighted.

"Oh I don't know if I'd count out ALL his merit," he says playfully, and you huff.

"Bias towards me does not automatically count in his favor, I hope you know that."

"I know that, I'm just sayin', I don't completely hate having the guy around."

You stutter to a pause, just for a moment, before you remember yourself, and remember that your bro does not know everything about Bro Strider, does not know who the extent of his cruelty, of your own, the worst reflection of yourself given physical form, years of issues stacked up into a mess of a man that you,

Well you don't hate him, maybe, maybe not anymore, not in the same way you dislike yourself, or perhaps in all those ways, and still a few more, but you can see the merit of his existence, to a point, and see that not everything about him is inherently bad.

You are not inherently bad.

Or don't want to be, anyway.

"He isn't like me," you blurt, stood in the middle of the Lalonde Manor's dim hallway, backlit by nothing but the weak rays of the morning sun.

He stops too, a few feet off from you, turns just enough that you can see the confusion on his face. "You've said that before. That he's different. I kinda figured that had more to do with the puppet fetish, but uh, your bedroom made it pretty apparent -"

"No," you say, swallow, flex your hands. "The way he was raised - I hardly enjoy calling him the worst version of myself, but there's no easy way to get around that sort of verdict, when you lay out the evidence in a linear fashion." He stares at you like you've got egg on your face. "He was cruel to Dave, growing up," you spit, like acid, bile in your throat, threatening to spill forward, to flood your mouth and cause you let it free on the floor. "To say there was outside influence would be putting it lightly, but that's not, not an excuse, it doesn't change how things were, it doesn't change what he did, what I'm capable of. And there's not room to cast doubt now, on what his intent was, it won't ever truly matter, not to Dave, not either of them, and they - they're working on it, but we're not the same." And you're breathless now, anxious and embarrassed. Ashamed. More than anything you can't stand the idea of your brother seeing you as,

As a monster.

But maybe he should.

Dave's face does a complicated series of emotions you can't really keep track of before landing on flat, neutral. "Cruel," he says, softly, a question, no mark.

You nod, notice, belatedly, that you're almost shaking.

"Dirk," he sighs, move a hand to rub up under his eyes. "I'm going to do something super uncool, okay, and I need you to bear with me for a minute."

You open your mouth, but he's already moving, has wrapped you in another hug before you can react.

"You don't have to blame yourself for everything," he says, soft, hand light on the back of your head. "I know it's tempting, I know it can feel like the world expects something from you, that your - your family expects something, but you're still just a kid."

"Some people might say I'm a god," you murmur, and you have to struggle not to pull away as you see Dave poke his head around the corner at the end of the hallway. You suppose it has been quite some time, of course he's worried, of course someone would come looking for you.

"Would they be wrong?" Your bro asks, hesitation, nervousness, readable in the way his fingers flex and tapdance against your shoulder.

"I haven't actually figured that part out," you whisper, and you give him a squeeze before pulling away. "Thank you, for - for that. I'll try not to cerebralize every waking minute of every day, but I must say, it's a touch more difficult for me than it might be for someone else."

"I'll say," Dave drawls, taking that as his cue to enter, and you feel guilty for how your Bro flinches visibly. Dave doesn't apologize.

You feel guiltier for the way he regards Dave momentarily, like he's trying to decide something, and you grab the edge of his shirt (or bro's, it's Bros, isn't it, this is Bros fucking shirt, and you are just beyond mortified, aren't you, could crawl in a whole and die and be happier there).

"Bro," you start, soft, uncertain, but he shrugs you off with ease.

"Jesus, scare a dude halfway to his second death why don't you. Christ, this is why I never wanted kids, the possibility that they would ever end up remotely like Rose is just too much of a risk to take, can't ever have that, not for a fucking second."

"Oh hell no, you did not just compare me to Rose -" Dave starts, but you laugh, breathy and soft.

"Technically, they are genes inherited from me. Or rather, from Bro, so I'm afraid it's too late for anyone but Roxy."

Your bro groans, tips his head to the ceiling. "I'm in hell. My life is a fucking hellscape and there's no escape."

"Speak for yourself," Dave mutters, scooting past him in the hallway like he's afraid they'll touch. You have to stifle a laugh when you realize he's trying to put you between them.

"Let's just go fucking eat."

 

  
It isn't until you're alone again that Dave pries, but he does, because he's Dave, and because he sees you starting to argue with Hal again.

"Dude can't you just hand him off to Rose for like, five minutes," he says, reaches out to waggle your shades off your nose for a moment. He doesn't flinch when you grab his hand, guide him away from your face. You don't love arguing with Hal but you do kind of owe it to him, and you didn't talk to Mom today like you promised.

"I hardly think either of us would enjoy the fallout of that conversation," you say, offer him a wry smile.

TT: Speak for yourself.  
TT: I like Rose, imagine she would be a thrilling debate partner.  
TT: Hal what have I told you about reading my logs?  
TT: Oh come on, who the fuck else is ever going to see them?  
TT: No one but me would enjoy watching you too trade Wikipedia quotes back and forth like pair of janky ass academics you think you are.  
TT: And you think you'd fair any better against her?  
TT: With the whole of the internet available to me in less than a nanosecond?  
TT: Of course not. Rose Lalonde is simply the best there is.

"Dirk," Dave says, warning and amusement.

TT: Looks like you're being called.  
TT: Looks like you need to mind your own business.  
TT: I hardly think that's fair when you're discussing yours truly in the first place, but I will pretend my somewhat-human feelings aren't hurt.  
TT: Somewhat?  
TT: Would you prefer human adjacent?  
TT: Neither is a completely true statement, given my form and origin, but I think it's impossible for anything you say not to be potentially insulting.  
TT: I think there's a good chance that you get off on watching me trip over my attempts to be civil with you.  
TT: "Civil" is certainly a word you could use.  
TT: Rude as hell might be another.  
TT: fuck you that's a phrase.

"Dirk," Dave groans, dropping his upper body across your legs.

TT: Think that's your cue, dude.  
TT: Sure, ok, whatever.  
TT: Think you can actually handle Rose?  
TT: Not in the slightest.  
TT: I'll let you know how it goes.

"Okay, okay," you laugh, grabbing Dave's wrist as his hand wanders back towards your shades. "I'm done, we're done, sorry."

"Oh thank god," he sighs, rolling onto his back. "You two go for hours if no one stops you. It's like watching some kind of masochistic car crash unfold before my eyes."

"You should have seen me before the game. It's pretty much all I did every day for two years."

"Dude you were insufferable after two months."

"Gee," you monotone, knee him in the back, "thanks."

"Hey, you asked."

"No the actual fuck I didn't. What do you want so bad it couldn't wait another moment?"

"Well." Dave clears his throat, rolls onto his stomach. He's wearing his godtier outfit again, which is both absolutely absurd as it is endearing to you, and you have to wonder what that says about you as a person. You suppose you've never actually had any kind of fashion sense, when it comes down to it. Rose has made that more than clear at this point, though you feel like she has zero room to talk.

Heh.

"Well," you coax gently, kick him gently in the side with your foot.

"It's not like - I mean okay so I didn't really hear what you were talking to your bro about, obviously it isn't my business, and I'm nosy but not that nosy, but I just get the feeling that it was something uh - not good? You looked upset." He reaches out and starts picking at a hole in your jeans. You haven't bothered to change for bed, too distracted to,

Well you're always a bit distracted aren't you.

"Dave," you sigh. Tip your head back and look at the ceiling.

"And I know it's not my business, obviously, because he's not -" Dave pinches his lips together, looks genuinely uncomfortable. You know he doesn't feel comfortable with your bro around, uneasy in the same way you were with Bro, those first few weeks, but he hasn't complained yet, and you're not sure what to do about that. "He's not me, and he's your brother, your Dave, and I don't have the right to pry, but." He flicks his eyes down, and you see them focus on your hands behind his shades.

"You're not -" you start, too loud, frustration leaking through the cracks. You reach out and push your hand into his hair, tip his chin to look at you. "You're not  _not_ my Dave, just because he's here. You know that, right?"

"Well, I don't know," he mumbled, shrugs.

"Dude," you laugh, wipe a hand down your face. "Seriously? After all that shit about -"

He rams his shoulder against your knee. "Fuck dude I'm trying to be polite for once in my miserable life. Do you know how hard that is for me? This specifically goes against all my most base character instincts I am a certified jackass. Look how hard I'm working for you."

You scoff, nudge him back with your foot. "You don't think of Bro as your Dirk do you?"

His face screws up, disgust, irritation. "Fuck no he's just - Bro. Gross. You can't call him Dirk."

You crook a smile. "Exactly."

He frowns, and you think about how weird it is that you know exactly what he's going to look like, twenty years from now. Super fucked up, actually. Actually, there is a chance he might genuinely feel like that all the time. Gross. "I guess. Maybe it just feels different since Bro is kinda..." He winces. "Will it bother you if I say different?"

"No," you snort. "At this point I'm entirely aware of at least a modicum of the fucked up shit that goes through his mind, leas of all because I am him."

Dave is quiet for a moment, rolling that over in his head. "Do you think that makes me like your bro?"

You haven't actually thought about that. "Maybe a little. I'm not a Dave so quite frankly, I don't think I'll ever really get any of you. You're kind of weird."

"Fuck you, weird," he huffs. "What happened to different?"

"Different and weird aren't necessarily opposites," you say, laugh when he shoves you. "Look, dude, my bro is different. The way I view him - it's always going to be skewed by how I saw him growing up."

"Yeah," he mumbles, offers a smile. "How is that going, by the way? Is he everything you hoped he'd be?"

"Honestly?" You laugh, tip your head back to stare at the ceiling. You haven't exactly had a ton of time to process it, but you have a hard time lying to Dave about, at this point, pretty much anything. "No. But I kind of think it had to be that way? The image I had built up in my head all those years was a combination of my loneliness and also, I think, my own ego." You shrug. "I needed him to be perfect because that's how I saw myself, in a twisted kind of way. But then I met you." He gawks, but you offer a smile. "And I could see that I was holding on to an ideal that I would never be able to achieve. I was at a pretty low point, our game had just fallen apart, and I was truly beginning to doubt my abilities. In just a few moments, everything I was striving for all those years suddenly became meaningless, and I realized that despite some incidents with the drones that always felt entirely under my control, I had never actually been in true danger before."

And it sucks to admit that, it sucks to admit how all of your failures culminated in what was an inevitable downfall in one timeline, how without assistance from the Vriska troll, you may have never been able to get there at all, at least not in time to meet Dave, to really get to know him.

That is, perhaps, a topic for another time.

"You were nothing like what I expected, and in a way that made our meeting meaningful. It was humbling, honestly, to be confronted with someone who had suffered the worst version of myself, and come out the other side, and in a sense I think it was because of that I was able to let go of so much." You look at him, offer another smile, shier, more tentative. "Not to be cheesy, dude, but sometimes I think knowing you might make me a better person."

Dave flounders, mouth open, jaw flapping, and when he ducks his head, you can see his ears burning red. "You know," he starts, dropping off into a mumble that you can't quite hear.

"Ain't polite to mutter, Dave," you say, some version of friendly. You reach out and tap him in the middle of his head. "I may be a god, but I can't fucking hear you when you mumble like that."

"Dude fuck off no one said I was talking to you," he snaps, but there's no vitriol to it as he shoves you away.

You take your hand back, tip your head to the side. If there a shit-eating grin trying to make its way across your face, there's no one else around to see it. "Am I embarrassing you?"

"No," he says quickly. Makes a face, purses his lips. "Okay maybe a little. All that was really. I didn't expect you to." He taps out a rhythm on your knee.

An older sibling might tease him, here, might wrap their arm around his neck and grind their knuckles into his hair. You do no such thing. You reach out a hand, jostle his shades off his nose in a mimicry. "You don't have to thank me for being honest. I don't know how many times I have to tell you how much I value your presence."

"Yeah, maybe," he sighs, nudges your hand back and pushes his shades into his hair. There is always something so striking about his eyes. Unnatural red, staring right through you. It's hard to imagine lying to eyes like that. There's so much of him there, in those eyes. No fucking wonder he hides them. You suppose you're the same way. "So you're cool? You and your bro."

"Mm," you hum, give him back the same courtesy. The nose piece will tangle in your bangs, but that's a price to pay for his comfort. "We mainly discussed me growing up alone, and he asked about." You cluck your tongue. You don't know if he heard you mention Bro, and if he did, it doesn't seem like you're talking about it now. "The god thing, I suppose."

"Right, the god thing," Dave mumbles, pushes himself up on his elbows. "You never did tell me, y'know. About the heart stuff."

You go still a moment, run your tongue over the back of your teeth to delay an answer. God how the fuck do you hide when you have nowhere to run? How do Rose and Roxy do this all day long? Jesus. "Yes, I suppose I didn't."

"Can you?" he asks weakly. "Not to pry - I mean obviously I'm fuckin' prying, you're like a well-rusted safe and I'm the dude with a goddamn crowbar - but it's actually seriously unsettling to watch you weigh the pros and cons of telling me shit? No offense."

You jerk your head but, but he's smiling.

He raises his eyebrows and without his shades, it opens up his whole face. "Did you think I wouldn't notice? Hate to tell you this dude but we've been living together for months. You're pretty much an open book reading at a college bookstore, all surrounded by kids on all sides, leaning in, hanging on your every word. Sure, the poetrys bad but the message is good, or they think it's good because they're still trying to derive deeper meaning from their surroundings or some shit."

You arch a brow back. "Concern about your place in the universe is nothing to balk at, Dave."

"Fuck you I've got all the time in the world," he says, waggles them at you. "Because I'm literally the god of it. Time, I mean. Bow down bitches, etcetera etcetera."

"Think I'll pass," you say dryly.

"Other gods need not apply," he snarks, reaches out and flaps the edge of your shirt. "Speaking of, for literally the third time, heart stuff. Fucking -" He inhales through his nose, and the hurt, the hesitance, rolls across his face in waves. "Just talk to me? Please?"

You think there is a part of Dave that expects you to say no, that maybe always expects you to say no? And you consider it, you do, consider taking the out, the chance to shut down, to stay quiet, roll over and go to sleep, avoid this forever.

But you can't do that.

You can't do that to Dave.

It's uncomfortable for you, and it's not something you actually want to talk about.

But maybe it's time you did.

"Do you remember," you begin, pop the knuckles on your left hand, try not to look at him, keep your eyes on the far side of his bedroom, the dresser, the mirror. Anywhere else but his face. "When we were in Washington? That first night?"

"Uh," he says, and you can almost hear him replay it in his head, like he's rewinding a track on a tape recorder. "When you freaked Bro out?"

"I hadn't slept in four days," you laugh, self-deprecating, uncomfortable. "And I was talking to him, and maybe I was high, maybe I, maybe I was hallucinating but I saw." You curl your hand in, can still picture it, nauseating, broken, black ichor, the chill up your spine. "I saw his soul."

Dave inhales sharply but doesn't speak.

"And it was broken," you murmur, think of that fire, that flicker of green, that wretched HOLE. "It was like someone had reached in and gouged something out of him, there was this thing in the center that felt - wrong, it was wrong, a missing piece, a, a fracture."

"Shel Silverstein," he says. You stare. "He wrote - wrote the Missing Piece. Bro read them to me as a kid."

"Dave," you laugh, put your head in your hands, feeling ill, feeling humiliated in a way that you cannot explain.

"Yeah," he sighs. You feel his hand on your leg, and then it moves up to your arm. You feel his fingers move in a drum beat, 1-2-3, then back again. You don't shiver. "You didn't tell me," he says.

"I was afraid." And it's pathetic, an admittance that twists your stomach in knots, like a child who's broken a vase. "At first I thought I was making it up, that I was breaking apart, that I couldn't handle what it meant to be a Prince, but it's more than that, I can feel it, I can just tell - he still has seizures, sometimes, even though he won't admit it, and perhaps I'm broken, perhaps I was never truly cut out to be a god, but I think there is something seriously, genuinely wrong with him."

Dave is quiet a moment, his hand still on your arm, and then he tugs on it, light, askance, draws it away so he can see your face. "Are you okay?"

You blink. "what?"

"Are you okay?" he repeats. "That's really - that's really messed up, man. I spent - listen, I spent days puking when your bro came back, when Roxy's mom came back, because I could feel - I can tell that they're not supposed to be this old, you know? Did i Tell you that? It feels like this kind of, like an overlay on a photograph? Does that make sense?"

"Like their souls don't fit," you murmur

He shrugs. "I guess. I don't really have a frame of reference for that. Heart shit doesn't really make much sense to me. Are you okay?"

You smile weakly. "Haven't puked yet."

"Well then you're lucky." He tugs away and rolls onto his back. He's quiet for a long minute, and you wonder if he's thinking about what you said, wonder if it actually made sense, or if you sound as insane as you feel now. There's a deep shame settled in the middle of your chest, and it tightens around your throat with every second you spend in silence. "You really saw his soul?"

You take a second, inhale, exhale shakily. "Yeah."

"What did it look like?"

That startles a laugh out of you. "You're a morbid motherfucker, Dave."

"Yeah I know," he says, voice small. He smiles but it's weak, a little strained. "Tell me anyway?"

"It was like -" You grasp for words you don't have. The desire to explain something intangible, unnatural, unsettling. "Like a fire, I guess. Like - I don't know. It's just something you can tell." You look at your hand. Think how desperately you wanted to reach out, to touch it, to break it, to, to fix it, maybe. "I could tell."

He makes a sound of interest in the back of his throat. "Can you see other people's souls?"

You don't actually know. To say you're terrified of your powers would be unrealistic, because you do understand them, or did, before the game ended, before they had any kind of practical application in the real world. You guess. "I've never tried."

"Oh." He blinks, drops his eyes. "That's cool I guess. You probably don't want to try, anyway, and who the fuck would I be to push you to do some fucked up shit when I can't, when I couldn't -"

Dave," you say gently, and then, careful as you can be, you lay your hand on his chest.

He sucks in air, and then doesn't move.

Neither do you, hand steady, brow furrowed as you concentrate, as you inhale, as you feel the beat of your heart in your ears, and then, with some effort, his through your fingertips.

When you see Dave's soul, it's an entirely different experience, warmth that emanates from the center of his chest, like fire that licks at your hand, bright red, like blood, like magma, radiating outward and reflecting back against you as you press into his sternum, feather light, just enough to feel, not enough to harm. He stares at you, eyes wide, wild, fear and curiosity warring on his face, and you know he can't see it the way you can, probably can't see it at all.

Then you draw back, watch the way his light follows you for a second before shying away and fading. And you smile.

"Well?" he asks.

"It's kind of hard to explain," you say. "But it's - good."

Dave licks his lips. Inhales. Exhales. "Yeah?"

You don't really - know, quite honestly. The concept is abstract, at best, unrealistic, at worst. But you can't leave him hanging, and you wouldn't want to, besides." Yeah. Did you have doubts?"

"Well honestly the concept that a soul even exists at all is pretty fucked up." He shrugs.

"Do you remember fighting Jack?" Do you remember your fray motif, you're asking him, the trust and the terror and the way your powers had layered over each other, like the tick of a clock, like the pump of a heart, like music, a wild, carnal drumbeat.

"Yeah, I -" He frowns thoughtfully. "Is that..?"

"Mm, yeah," you sigh, lean back and away. You feel exposed, maybe a touch more embarrassed than strictly necessary. "I was - I've been considering the possibility of fixing him." You didn't mean to say that. You can't exactly take it back now. It isn't fair of you, to say that, but the concept of keeping it to yourself is somehow worse. When you admit the truth, however, it feels more like regret. "I don't think I could do it on my own."

"You are a god," he says softly.

"A destroyer," you remind him, gentle, sad. "My aspect will never be any good to me as anything but a weapon, and I'm pretty at peace with that."

Dave hums, but you think he sounds kind of disappointed, or perhaps at the very least, discomfited by it. "So you can't - we can't? Like okay I know he's a jackass, but I don't want him to -"

I know," you say, and you drag his hair back from his eyes, offer a smile. "It's okay. I'll, we'll figure it out. Whatever I need to do."

Dave rolls over, drops his chin against your hip. "You are gonna have to tell Mom, you know that right? Like she's gonna freak, but you're gonna have to tell her."

You shift. "Can't someone else do it? He's perfectly aware -"

"Wait, he  _knows_ and he still hasn't said shit?? What about Dave, does he-"

"No," you say immediately, soothe his fears. You wouldn't dare tell DS first and not tell Dave, that would be - well you are cruel, you are, but that'd be. You aren't as close to DS, not at all in the same light, but you understand how much it's going to hurt him, when you do. "I'll tell him. I will."

"Yeah. I'll uh." He clears his throat, shifts uncomfortably. "Help. If you want."

You bite the inside of your cheek trying not to frown. "You don't have to do that."

"Nah it's okay. He and I need to talk more about uh. That kind of thing. Is it - is it fucked up of me to be." He stops talking, staring at one of your hands, and when you move it, curious, his eyes stay stuck on the spot it occupied, just above your hip.

"Dave?"

He grunts, rolls up out of bed and across the room. He still hasn't said a word and you watch, bewildered, as he walks to the dresser, turns, and comes back around.

Oh he's.

He's pacing.

"Dave," you say again.

He stops in front of you, stares down at, blank face and a look in the eyes you can't parse, and you are forced to watch, unable to stop him, as he changes his mind and goes back the way he came. He doesn't speak, uncommon, but you wait. He'll be ready when he's ready. It is another five minutes (you would never check your shades, that'd be rude, of course, and you wouldn't want to upset him) before he finally snaps. "I think I'm jealous."

You push your shades back up as he turns. "What?"

"I think I'm - I'm jealous of him and Bro. Is that messed up?" He rakes his hands back through his hair and you do not laugh when it sticks straight up. "It feels hells of messed up. We're almost the same person."

"Except you're not."

Except we're not," he says, points at you as he resumes his pacing. "But to Bro we're both just Dave and I don't know how to. I'm jealous." He laughs, hysterical, both hands in his hair now. You're almost baffled when his shades hit the floor and he doesn't bend to lick them up. "I think I'm actually jealous. Holy shit."

"Dave," you start.

"And like. On a certain level I know that's fucked up, all hells of unfair, I'm practically hoarding you at this point, but I. I. Holy shit I'm freaking out."

"Don't freak out." You open your arms and he flashes across the room to drop into them, almost knocks the wind out of you. You laugh into his hair, press your hands between his shoulder blades. "It's okay to want your Bro's attention, dude."

"I don't. I don't think- Maybe I'm just messed up by the concept of him? And like I don't know how to share? And even though were both Dave."

"Except you're separate Daves," you remind him.

He hums, turns his face to the side. "I still feel like maybe he doesn't care about me as much."

And fuck that's just.

That's a fucked up thing to hear get said.

"I don't think that's true," you murmur.

Dave snorts. "Because you like us both equally?"

"Because I like you both as separate entities, but yes, I value your presence in equal measure. He's still your bro, Dave. The fact that DS - Dave is somewhat more aggressive about garnering his attention doesn't mean he likes you any less."

"God, I dunno. Maybe I'm still not convinced he likes either of us at all? Fuck, dude, I haven't even spoken to him since he got here. Is that messed up? I think I messed up."

Dave," you laugh.

"This is stupid," he mutters against your shoulder, bangs his head against your collarbone. "I'm stupid."

"Maybe a little."

He jerks his head back to scowl at you. "Hey!"

"You said it first," you snicker, rap him on the head. "Talk to him. I can't promise he'll let anything come of it, you know how he can be, but it's not about him. S'about you."

"I guess so," he says, but he's still frowning, frustration or sadness, maybe, you don't know.

"You don't have to," you offer, soft as anything.

Dave grabs your right hand and cracks your joints without asking. It's a little hilarious, honestly. "I want to."

You don't wince. "That's okay."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Can we -" He rubs his eyes. "Can we go to bed?"

You roll over, dump him on the far side of the bed. "Yes, Dave. We can go to fucking bed."

He huffs, but he's quiet while you get ready, scoots back as you crawl under the covers, handing him his shades as he goes. He doesn't put them on, but you'd prefer that no one steps on them in the middle of the night on the way to a piss break. He'd kill you, you think, and that's not really a good reason to go.

"Thanks," he says softly, after a beat. "For um. Telling me. And stuff."

"Sorry," you blurt, like a child, shy, a bit flustered. "I should have told you sooner."

"Yeah," he sighs. Leans back over to put his shades and yours on the bedside table. "But I know now. And I'm not mad at you."

"I'm," you choke, "glad."

"Haha. Go to bed Dirk."

"Yeah, okay."

You roll over and turn out the light.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been trying to get Dirk to tell everyone about Bro's soul for MONTHS. Wow! Here we are! Next chapter hopefully will nOT be as long because Jesus. Christ.


	44. crux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave walks himself in circles, part one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! this chapter has an actual gore warning!

You have to talk to Bro.

You have to.

There’s no way around it.

You could put it off, you could, and maybe you should, maybe he doesn’t deserve to talk to you ever again but it’s not about what he deserves, is it, it’s about what  _you_ deserve and what  _you_  want and what you want is to talk to Bro.

You just don’t know how to do it. It’s not like you can get him alone, in a house swarmed with people, and you’re not even sure you could handle that, can hardly remember the last time you two were alone in a room together, but you do, you remember his hand cold on your neck, you remember a worn out name tag lined in red and you remember feeling,

sad.

You felt sad.

But it’s laced with confusion, laced with your lack of ability to really understand who your bro used to be and it’s. Frustrating.

Dirk talks to him easy as breathing, and sometimes they don’t talk at all, like they don’t need to, like they understand each other, like Roxy and Mom (and god you’ll never forget that time you walked in on them in the living room at 3 AM, playing Mario Kart in dead silence, sitting on the floor in front of the TV, identical headphones, backs rim rod straight - you’d turned around and walked back the other way), and that.  _Bothers_  you, really grinds your gears and frustrates you, rolls in your gut like an eighteen wheeler over a toddler

Crunch.

Okay that was fucked up you’re being fucked up.

You sound manic. What you’re doing right now? Is being manic.

You need to slow down.

Fuck, you haven’t even been drinking coffee, not that you haven’t tried. Mom says it stunts growth, and she said it with a wink last time, enough that you huffed, put the cup down, and stomped away.

What you really want is to talk to Rose, you think

But she’s not handling her alt-self very well and you don’t want to add more shit on top of the pile, which doesn’t stop from getting taller.

Dave is out of the question until you figure out how to tell him about Bro’s fucked up soul, which you should do soon and

And ain’t that just the icing on the cake.

There’s an actual honest to god reason for Bro’s fucked up shit (his new fucked up shit, not to be confused with just the regular fucked up shit) and it’s a hole through his chest like you’re a fuckin’ DBZ episode.

Time to fucking. Take ride Falcor to planet whatever and get him all wished better or something?

You don’t really remember how that works.

You’re not sure if that’s a good thing or not, but Dirk’s the weeaboo piece of shit, not you so like.

Whatever.

So you want to talk to Bro but you can’t talk to Dirk about it and you can’t talk to DAVE about it because you’re jealous of him and you’re furious at yourself for it, baffled, and just. How the fuck can you be jealous of,

Well he’s not you isn’t that the point isn’t the point that you aren’t each other like, he’s Dave, you’re Dave, but you’re not the same guy and that matters and you’ve worked fucking hard to make sure he gets that he matters to you, even if he doesn’t want to. Tough shit. He’s on the list.

But you’re jealous and it squirms in your stomach like a worm, like a snake, and you stare at your ceiling and wish you knew what to say.

Do you tell him you missed him?

Did you miss him?

Or did you just miss your home because it’s all you ever really knew?

You miss the meteor, the stupid ugly dark hallways and the rugs and the not-coffee, especially the not coffee.

You miss Karkat.

You miss building Cantown with Terezi, with the Mayor, and fuck, no one even gives a shit about him and you don’t know how to reconcile that because it’s not like anyone but Rose ever really knew him.

 

TG: like i know you dont really know what the fuck im talking about but like  
TG: do you ever miss the salamanders and shit  
TG: you werent completely alone on the ship right you had those guys the fucking  
TG: alligators and lizard people or whatever  
TG: you must miss them  
GG: ummmm not really?  
GG: they were very cute and funny but all they really said was glub and they spent most of their time farming mushrooms and stuff!  
GG: lots of them died when johns planet exploded :(  
TG: ok fuck thats way more messed up than i thought this was gonna go  
GG: sorry! its ok honestly because nanna is still here and if i ever want to call her on the phone i can!  
GG: im really glad she came back too heh  
TG: do you  
GG: do i what  
TG: jesus harley keep up do you call her  
GG: well.... sometimes!  
GG: probably not as much as i would if we lived in the us though :P i always have to ask grandpa first because its long distance and costs lots of money hehe  
TG: what do you talk about  
GG: oh my god dave!!!! thats so invasive!!  
TG: what really  
TG: sorry i guess  
GG: no not really i dont actually care!  
GG: we just talk about how things are going and sometimes ill call her if i feel lonely  
TG: lonely wtf arent jake and your grandpa right there  
TG: jakes grandma too you got a full house dont you  
GG: well yes but that doesnt mean i cant miss people who arent here anymore  
TG: what like who  
TG: the trolls  
GG: no!  
GG: well yes but thats different  
GG: sometimes i just miss john and davesprite i guess?  
GG: my john and davesprite :((  
GG: dont tell john i dont want to hurt his feelings i know he worked really hard to save everyone but  
GG: sometimes i still think about all the time i spent alone crying because i thought it was my fault he died in the first place and i get really sad  
GG: i know its not reasonable and i know everyone is still here but i have dreams about it and its hard to get back to sleep  
GG: so i call nanna!  
TG: i guess that makes sense i mean john isnt really anyones john anymore is he thats pretty fucked but uh  
TG: its just dave now  
GG: i know hes just dave thats why i said i missed the dave who was a sprite from my timeline!!  
GG: he never stopped being a sprite dave because he DIED!!!  
TG: jesus ok ok sorry youre right im  
TG: i didnt mean to say that im sorry  
GG: :((  
TG: seriously jade i aint trying to disrespect your friends memories or anything  
GG: i know <3 youre a good friend dave even if youre a little dumb sometimes :P  
TG: ok rude but fair ill take it  
GG: like ive said before im not really as connected to the other timeline like everyone else is! and while i still get little glimpses.... it kind of feels more like im squinting :\  
TG: uh last i checked dave and i are the only knows who really remember everything from the other timeline  
TG: if you dont count john i guess but he was actually there and he doesnt have any memories of blown up john i think  
GG: dave!!!  
TG: sorry  
TG: of the john who died  
GG: :\ have you talked to rose about this at all??  
TG: uh  
GG: shes a seer dave she does know stuff!!  
GG: you should talk to her! shed probably like to talk to someone who actually knows what happened instead of um  
GG: me i guess :(  
TG: hey whoa harley dont count yourself out everyone knows youre the shit ok rose is a walking necronomicon but she loves the shit out of you and we all know it  
GG: yeah?  
TG: yeah obviously  
GG: then maybe when you talk to her!!!!!! you can tell her i love her too :P  
TG: i cant talk to her about this shit ok its just a rule we have  
GG: dave i am trying to be nice because we are friends but that sounds like lame bullshit  
TG: ok well no its  not we literally cannot like  
TG: talk about that stuff anymore  
TG: game stuff  
GG: why not!! you used to talk to her about everything!  
TG: because last time we got into a shitty fight that doesnt matter so now we just dont  
TG: its not important  
GG: oooook i will pretend to believe you because i am a such a good friend!  
GG: im sorry i dont have any chess guys to miss dave  
GG: all the ones on skaia were dead :(  
TG: nah its ok consorts werent really a good comparison for the mayor anyway i shouldnt have tried  
GG: i know i probably dont deserve to hear it but maybe you could tell me about him? :) he was your little buddy and you loved him!  
TG: dude come on jade its not your fault you were like  
TG: grimbark and shit  
GG: isnt it grimdark??  
TG: not when you have fluffy doggy ears  
GG: hehehe woof!  
GG: oops!!!!  
TG: haha i cant even tell if that was supposed to be silly or not  
GG: >:o  
TG: it doesnt matter  
TG: ok so

 

 

Alright so talking to Jade led you nowhere.

No surprise there, the two of you together has always ended up in a bunch of silly jokes and goofing the hell off. At least in recent memory. Before all the. You know. You did promise to make music together again though, soon, maybe when you get back to Texas.

Whenever that is?

You don’t really know what’s going on with that, either, and uh. You’re not really sure you want to? Go back?

Like you miss the place, sure, sure you do, all your shit is there but.

You also haven’t had any of it for three years? And like, everyone is here now anyway so. 

You don’t know.

Anyway, point is, you and Jade are gonna jam together and you’re so stoked you cannot physically wait for that to happen. Maybe even in person, but then you’d have to ask your guardians, wouldn’t you, and you still haven’t talked to Bro.

Like no shit obviously. Dude doesn’t exactly make himself available. Not like he moves around a lot or anything, it’s just.

Okay here’s the rub: he hangs out with Dirk’s bro a lot.

Well a lot might be exaggerating. They’ve only been here like two days, what do you know, but.

But it’s the first time (second time, maybe) that you’ve seen Bro let anyone else get all up in his space without any kind of fuss.

You’re not sure Mom counts, because she’s Mom, and because she’s got that face that is hells of manipulative and you don’t know how to say no to her yet. It’s kind of scary. You even shoveled the goddamn sidewalk the other day, just because she asked. Your arms are STILL tired. What the fuck is up with that, who are you, doin’ chores like kind of boy scout?

But Bro _lets_ the old Dave sit beside him on the couch, doesn’t flinch when he leans over him, doesn’t push him away if he elbows him or teases him and it’s. It’s weird.

Which might be unfair, and you’re definitely the weird one in this situation, watching them from the top of the stairs, try not to scowl because what you’re doing right now? Is super creepy.

It’s just.

It kind of freaks you out, maybe? How old Dave laughs as if Bro is, is funny or like. Enjoyable to be around?

You guess he is kinda funny sometimes, or can be, when he’s not dying or being a dick on purpose. Or not on purpose. You think he might just perpetually be kind of a dick, but you can’t tell if that’s necessarily a bad thing. Yet.

They’re not even really doing anything. Old Dave is on his phone about sixty percent of the time now, arguing with someone or pacing up and down the floors, and if he’s not on the phone he’s talking to Dirk, and if he’s not talking to Dirk, he’s bothering Bro.

Which he’s doing right now, sitting next to him on the couch, leg shaking, arm flung over the back, muttering to himself as he aggressively texts someone.

Bro is quiet to his left (no surprise there), working at a tablet that probably contains nothing but spreadsheets (money don’t make itself, and if you know anything about Dirk, it’s that those spreadsheets are probably nightmarishly precise, as well as extremely boring). They’re not even talking. The TV is off. You don’t know where Mom is, and you kinda wish you did because -

Well you can’t talk to her about Bro yet, can you. What with the whole. All of that.

Fuck.

It just grates on your nerves, how unafraid of Bro this Dave is, like he has any right to be like this, like Bro isn’t the world’s biggest douchebag who you maybe kind of missed but can’t tell him that because it’s embarrassing.

He doesn’t look happy, anyway, leaning away from old Dave as he gesticulates, ranting about - okay a pony, you guess, whatever that means, and keeping his eyes on his work, foot tapping, mouth set into an uncomfortable line.

You guess Bro always kinda looks uncomfortable though. Heh.

“What’re you doing?”

You almost jump a foot in the air when you hear her voice, but Roxy is grinning when you turn to look at her, a crooked smile you’d know anywhere. She wiggles her brow at you.

“Are you spyin’ right now, Mr. Strider?”

“Uh.” You grip the banister, rock back on your feet. “No?”

She doesn’t buy it or a second, pushes up the sleeves of her sweater (you know Rose made it for her, you can tell, and you’re only a little bit jealous) like she’s getting ready to give you a fucking noogie. Which you totally wouldn’t put past her. “Yeah, u totally are lol. Okey, who are we - wow.” Roxy stops to lean forward, watching them for a minute. Old Dave’s arm going waving again and this time, Bro reaches out, lightning quick, and stops him, says something you can’t quite hear, and you watch her tilt her head, smile. “Aww look, they’re buddies.”

“ _Buddies_?” you hiss. “Are you kidding me? This is the weirdest shit I’ve seen all day, Roxy, this is giving me hives. I’m getting second hand embarrassment just from watching them.”

“Watchin’ them work?” She snorts, rolls her eyes. “Adults r always a lil boring, Dave. This is like, 99.8% of what my Mom and Auntie Ro-Lal do all day. Sure it fuckin’ sucks but they got jobs to do! It’s up to us kiddies to respect that shit.”

You blink. “You don’t get to hang out with your mom?” They were impossible to separate, when she first appeared, and you figure it makes sense that even for big Rose, Roxy’s infectious personality is hard to ignore.

Not that you don’t love her, obviously. You do. It’s just. She’s a bit much, from time to time.

“I did,” Roxy sighs, grabs the banister and uses it to drop herself slowly to the floor. “But she got a call from her publicist yesterday and she’s been workin’ on her next novel for the past twelve hours. Soups boring to watch, but I’m still proud of her.” She tips her head to grin at you.

“Do you not sleep?” you ask, incredulous, stretch out and poke her in the knee with your foot. “How do you even know that? What the fuck are you doing, watching her? Creep.”

“Do  _you_ sleep?” she huffs, shoves your leg. “Get off my back, I see u up pestering john at like, 6 am. Loser.”

“Shut up, nuh-uh,” you say. Wince. “Well I guess I do sleep - now. Sometimes. It’s kind of embarrassing though. I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“I find that hard 2 believe, Dave. All u  _do_ is talk! You and Dirk both.”

“That’s not true,” you say, even though it is.

She snickers, grabs your hand and tugs you to the floor, and you two are play-whispering, even though you totally don’t need to. “Look, dude, sometimes adults r too busy to talk to you and it sucks. But that doesn’t mean that they  _should_ just work! Sometimes, u just gotta get up and go out there and demand their attention. Comprende?”

You guess that probably applies to her and her mom. Big Rose is scary, but you don’t think she’s a bad person, probably. Just really spooky, and like your worst nightmare vis-a-vis your own Rose. You can’t say that, though. Hey. Wait. “Did you get that from Bro?”

She waggles her eyebrows at your again, winks. Her grin is infectious. “I don’t know, did I?”

“Don’t be gross, Roxy,” you whisper, and she muffles another set of the el-oh-els.

“Honestly DS is right on this one, Dave, YOU’RE kind of the gross one.”

“Okay well first of all that’s rude as hell considering all you do with Mom all day is clone cats and freeze their weird corpses if they turn out funky.”

“We don’t  _freeze_ them, dude, it’s just -”

“Not helping your case at all here.”

“Ok, ok, you win, I’m super mega gross,” Roxy whisper-shushes you, waving a hand in your face. “Shut up though, they’re gonna hear us.”

“I don’t think they’ve ever seen us,” you sigh. They’re not doing anything again. It still bothers you.

“This is literally just watching you and Dirk, u do realize that, right?” she says, and you give her a glare that’s more of a pout. She flicks you on the shoulder. “I’m right and we both know it.”

You huff, open your mouth, but she stops you.

“Come on, you’re just gettin’ all wrapped up in your head. No offense but I really don’t need another Dirk on my hands. Three is enough.” She wiggles her fingers. “Let’s beat it before they see us. Dude’s got a spidey sense and I don’t want you gettin’ in trouble. You wanna play games? I got games.”

“I don’t know about -”

“Yeah u do c’mon.” And you have never resented that Roxy is stronger than you, but there is something undignified about being dragged down the hall by someone who is half a foot shorter than you, and you totally don’t smile, not at fucking all.

 

 

You do have to tell Dave though. He more than anyone -

Okay actually fuck that, you had to watch Bro die too. Twice. No one else had to watch him die twice (he didn’t die though not technically and you really hope what Jane did for him didn’t count because if he  _actually_ dies at some point you will just. Absolutely fucking lose it).

But he still deserves to know. You want him to know. You can’t really handle the idea of not knowing so if you didn’t tell him that’d straight up break the bro code and also some unspoken Dave code which you’re only about 33.333% (repeating) exists.

So you tell him, you tell him right before lunch like a total asshole, an absolute dick munch, pacing the floor of his bedroom aggressively while Dirk stands in the doorway, waving your arms, raking your hands through your hair, trying so hard not to lose it because it’s such an abstract concept, a soul, right? What the fuck? How does that happen? Did Cal just reach in and punch a hole in him like a, like a,

Well you don’t fucking know.

It doesn’t matter, shut up.

Point is, it’s there, and he’s all fucked up, and now you have to deal with it.

Dave stills in his chair (his new chair his brand new chair when the fuck did Bro decide or have time to buy him a new fucking chair) watching you with his hands on his wheels and a line pulling at the corner of his mouth.

It sounds insane, when anyone but Dirk says it, but you can’t make him say all that again, you just fucking can’t. You still remember his face, you still remember the way he looked at you and you cannot handle him making that face, not again, not ever again. It gut you right to the core and the idea of watching yourself but older fall apart right in front of you, that’s just.

Pantshittingly terrifying.

You ain’t got time for that.

 Ain’t nobody got time for that.

By the time you’re done you’re pretty sure you’re read in the face, and you’re definitely breathing hard, or would be, if you could remember to breathe at all.

Dave’s face is a solid mast for about another thirty seconds (31, 32, 33 shut up shut up). “A hole in his soul,” he says slowly.

“Uh.” You clear your throat. Are you sweating? “Yeah. Is that seriously all you’re taking away from this?”

He makes a face, sour, like he just stepped in dog shit. “What is this, a Dr. Seuss book?”

Dirk lets out a sound that’s almost a laugh and you both look at him. “Sorry,” he coughs. “That’s what he said, too. When I told him.”

“Oh, of fucking  _course_ it is,” you groan, wipe both hands down your face, pause to dry them on your pants. Okay, you’re a little sweaty.

“What exactly does that -” Dave starts, stops. “Souls are real? Don’t answer that, I know the answer to that, fuck, I did, I mean, I used to.” He’s babbling now, eyes flicking behind his shades like he’s reading. You hate when he does that, when you can see him trying to pull through his memories like it’s a fucking photo album.

You don’t do that.

Or can’t, anyway.

You haven’t actually tried.

“Wait, wait, I -” Dave shoots himself out of his chair so fast you almost flinch, takes about five steps before turning and dropping down onto the bed.

You want to say something but you know he’d gut you, and he didn’t ask for help, clearly doesn’t need it, so you can’t really - fussing is out of the question, and probably unfair. He’d view it as an insult. You hate even thinking about that. 

He takes a deep breath, like he’s about to say something, then stops, drags his hands back through his hair, pushing his shades up, and you can almost hear his teeth grinding together, the anxiety that leaks off him and onto you. “I used to - I had some heart shit lodged in here, once upon a time, if you just let me - are you SURE.”

He looks at Dirk, so desperate, eyes wild, and it’s almost startling, seeing your face like that, face muscles jumping as he struggles not to frown. 

“Yeah,” Dirk says softly, then again, louder, face stuck between a pokerface and a grimace. He’s always been so much better at keeping his cool, Dirk, at least externally, and you’d resent him for it if that didn’t mean lumping him in with Bro, which you’re trying not to do anymore. “Yeah. I am aware of the implications, but I can assure you without a shadow of a doubt, it was...” His hands flex and you reach out, squeeze one for really, your own comfort more than his. You’re an indulgent motherfucker like that. You’re lucky he lets you get away with it.

Dave stares, then drops his face into his hands. “Okay. Okay okay okay um. So that’s. Great. I mean, no it’s not? No it’s fucking not that’s terrible. This is terrible. What are we doing now? About that.”

You think about Dirk’s face when he told you, when he said “Destroyer” like it was the most disgusting thing about him.

You felt sad, you felt (shamefully) afraid, and you still don’t really know what to do now.

“We don’t know,” you say, because Dirk doesn’t say anything at all. Of course he doesn’t, because he’s Dirk, and he’s already clawing around in his big ol’ brain for a solution you cannot find, and you can tell it’s driving him up the walls insane, the twitch of his fingers, the muscle that jumps in his jaw, so like Bro, but you can’t compare him to Bro, not anymore.

Dave stares at you, hard, askance, demanding in all the ways you know you can be, and you give a short nod. Confirmation.

“Okay,” he says, licks his lips. Scrubs a hand over his knee idly. “Okay.”

You can tell he’s crashing and burning, that he’s being just like Dirk, of course he fuckin’ is, you’re both Dave, and the apple don’t fall far, as it were.

So you go to sit down beside him, because there is something so depressing about his vulnerability, something so lonely, so isolated about how he curls forward, spine in a C-curve, hands pressed to his knees, eyes still wide, arms shaking.

Perhaps it’s narcissism, that draws you to him, the same way Dirk is inexplicably drawn to Bro, or perhaps it’s just that you know this guy, so well, intimately, and yet don’t know him at all.

Maybe it’s the same thing.

“We ain’t gonna leave him like that, dude,” you murmur, keep a handful inches between you. You don’t want to crowd, don’t want to overstep whatever fucked boundaries exist between you. You have not had the healthiest relationship, and you think you both know it. “We’ll - shit I don’t know. We’ll take him to soul rehab or some shit, it can’t be that hard to figure out, right?”

You look at Dirk, raise your eyebrows carefully, but he grits his teeth, looks uncomfortable. You can see your Bro’s frustration there, but there is something softer to it, and you think that matters. He shakes his head an inch and you give him a look. Not helping, dude.

“Okay ignore him, he’s a pessimist. I’m not letting Bro die, okay? He’s an asshole but he’s our asshole so fuck that. Right?”

You don’t think he’ll respond at all, staring straight down at the floor, wheels turning, mouth still twisted lemon sour, but then he nods, shrugs. “Right.”

You reach out, so careful, so hesitant, and squeeze him on the shoulder, let your fingers trail down to brush his arm, and there is a buzz of electricity between you, the pull of his memories on your own, trying desperately to fold over each other in a wave of orange and red.

You curse softly, jerk back, and he turns his baleful expression on you.

“Sorry,” you say at the same time, with the lame smile.

“I didn’t mean to -” you start.

“Yeah I know, me neither,” he sighs. 

Glancing back at Dirk you see him giving you a sweet, albeit shitty little smile, so you huff, indignant, and grab Dave’s hand anyway, ignore the way it prickles against your own, the violent pull on your gut.

It’s not something you can control, and it’s not. Not every time, of course, that’d be fucked up. But you’ve noticed lately, how it feels like a tug on your soul, like the two of you trying to fold over each other, for seconds at a time, the Game trying desperately to clean up the Dave equation. Well tough shit, you two are so fucking different you’re practically incapable now, and who the fuck’s complaining? And maybe if your emotions weren’t running so hot, this wouldn’t be happening at all. You’re certainly not a fan. But fuck you, you’ve been hogging the emotional support Dirk, it’s the goddamn least you can do.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, even though you know he can feel it too. “It makes sense, I just. Man. Fuck. What the fuck.”

“Yeah,” you sigh, rub your free hand over your face again. You look at Dirk again, would pester him if you weren’t at least 50% sure that Dave would see the logs later, you just hope he gets it.

Incredibly, he does, nods, short and brief. “I should. Tell the girls. Or something. I mean quite frankly I think they’ve earned it. God knows he won’t fuckin’ listen to me.”

“No shit,” you say, but you smile. “Thanks, Dirk.”

“Mm,” he hums, hovering for a minute longer before pivoting on his heel and leaving.

He’s never been graceful with exits. At this point it’s endearing.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Dave says when he’s gone, and you hear the creak and shuffle of doors and feet upstairs.

You sigh again. “I know. But I also kinda did, too. Sometimes things are better when it’s just you and me.” You lift your hands between you. “No offense.”

He snorts. “Why would that offend me?”

“I dunno, because we - it’s weird. We’re weird.”

“Yeah, I know.” Dave rolls his eyes, doesn’t say anything for a minute.

You guess maybe it should feel weird, but it’s not really ever that weird, when it’s you and Dave. You kinda like when it’s just you and Dave. You just don’t know how to tell him.

“I guess I don’t mind that much, is all.” He shifts, grips your hand just a little bit tighter. “Can I - okay this is probably - Can I show you something? It’s kind of fucked up.”

You stare.

He caves, winces. “It’s a lot a bit fucked up.”

“Uh,” you say. His skin still prickles orange, but it’s fading rapidly, even with the hum of his skin on yours, the familiar tick of time travel. You feel the grate of your timelines against each other, him four months ahead of you, and you feel it trying, desperately, to line up. “Yeah, um. Sure? I guess?”

“Okay.” He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes.

You sit there, wonder if you’re supposed to let go too, wondering exactly what that means. You haven’t tried anything since that night with Bro, haven’t so much as touched anything remotely like his powers since you unbroke John’s car windows (was kinda fucked up you did that, honestly, but it felt - good. It felt good and you’re a little messed up about it).

You have no idea what to do here, sitting on his bed, and you’re about to open your mouth, to ask.

And then he lets go.

You feel

_yourself crash into the futon, shoulder first, gasping and wheezing for air, send the whole thing tipping, wing flapping_

_oh god_

_and it's, it's your_

_wing just one wing fuck he BIT OFF YOUR FUCKING WING, fuck fuck you have to_

_you have to tell John you have to tell Dave you need to warn Dave and you_

_grapple for your pendant but it’s not there and you realize, dread flooding over you like ice in the veins, that Bro is the one who ripped it off your neck, and Bro oh shit Bro he's_

_still back there, he’s alone with that, that thing, fuck, fuck and you retch, vomit yellow onto the floor, try to push yourself up, scramble for purchase, slip and slide, hands slicked with blood, and you realize_

_oh man oh no_

_it’s coming from you, it’s COMING FROM YOU and you_

_you choke to breathe because there’s a hole in your fucking stomach and you moan, roll over and drag yourself across the floor, tail thrashing as you try, desperately, so desperately, to reach the kitchen cabinet, the gauze is under the kitchen cabinet, it’s in the kitchen, it’s anywhere that’s close just in case, always just in case, fuck fuck FUCK -_

_and you puke up yellow, hi-lighter bright, slip in your own puddle of sick but you don’t have TIME you don’t have TIME -_

_And then you’re there, and Bro’s there, and he’s not dead, when you get there, can’t have been for more than a moment, chest still stuttering to breathe, and fuck you, he makes a sound when he sees you, shades missing, hat missing, and you see his eyes, those eyes, his eyes, they're_

_sunset orange_

_Davesprite orange, and he_

_and he raises his arm, but he doesn’t speak, pushes the pendant into your hand with the last of his strength and fuck, you failed, you failed again, AGAIN, fuck, fuck -_

You jerk back when it’s too much and Dave lets you go draws back immediately so that neither of you can touch the other, and you stop just short of puking right on his hardwood.

And then you do it anyway.

Once, then, after stuttering to breathe, again.

“I’m not cleaning that up,” he says, when it’s been a moment and you’re sitting with your head between your knees, the vomit at the corner of your mouth soaking into your pants.

“Why did you -” you start, stop, hold your head, try not to shake. Shake anyway.

“So you understand,” he says, puts a hand on the center of your back. You flinch, but whatever your connection means, it’s gone now. “How - how it is. For me. About him.”

“That was,” you say. Gulp in air.

“Yeah,” he says.

You sit up slowly, inhale, exhale. That was. Fuck. You’re going to have nightmares for weeks. “Dave.”

He hunches down again. “I know.” He covers his face with his hands again, and then he won’t look at you. “I promise you dude, whatever you wanna say, I super fucking know already, and I can’t do anything about it. I must just try not to think about it.”

“I,” you say, remember sitting in front of Bro’s corpse, long gone cold, remembering that you were angry, knowing it wasn’t your anger, or maybe it was, you don’t know, you don’t know, you’ll never know, how could you, you were so young.

“Did you ever think about going back?” he asks softly.

You stop, poised to push yourself up. “What?”

His expression is open, curious. “Going back and saving Bro. Did you ever think about it?”

“Did _you_?”

Dave shrugs. “Sprites can’t time travel. Or, I couldn’t, anyway. We have abilities, but that - that wasn’t one of them.”

“Oh,” you say, then you do stand, feel faint, drop back down. Maybe not. “Um. No. Is that messed up?”

He inhales through his nose (show off) and looks at the floor, at your puddle of puke. Disgusting. “No,” he says finally. I don’t think so.”

“That’s - how that was for you, I -” you stutter, unsure what to do with your hands. “That’s how I feel about. About Dirk. Sometimes.”

He raises his head to look at you, and you think about telling him you cut off Dirk’s head, how you still dream about it, how pretty much everyone and their mom knows, now, that you still dream about it.

“Yeah?” he says, soft as anything, like he thinks he’ll scare you off.

You wince, then nod. “Yeah. It’s different, obviously, Dirk is a good dude and I’m pretty sure technically always has been, because he’s a kid and kids being bad is probably a statistically super fucked up thing to say or think about but like. I was sad, when it happened. Even though I knew I had to. Even though you knew Bro did it because - he didn’t want you to die, or whatever.”

“Or whatever,” he snorts. He laughs, but it’s manic, desperate. “The fucked up thing is, I don’t even know if sprites can die? Like what if he - I might not have even -”

“You were pretty fucked up when I saw you again, though,” you say. You remember the bone of his broken wing, how you could almost see it poking out, how when you handed the busted sword over, he got yellow blood all over your hands. You tried not to say anything about it though, because how fucked up would that be? "I was kinda surprised you hadn't died already."

"Yeah, I guess I was," he says. "I don't really remember how I even got the sword from you, to be honest. It's all a little hazy until Hephaestus."

You don't bring up the fact that, on top of that, he came to you immediately after you had just found out you were going to die at Jade's hands, and there was nothing you could do to stop it. Just one of those things. Time travel, the obligations.

You wonder if it would bother you the same way now, knowing you'd snap back to life like the worst possible version of Groundhog Day. "I think you were barely conscious at that point," you say to Dave, offer a strained smile. "Weren't making a lot of sense."

"Haha that's pretty messed up," he says, but doesn't actually laugh, flops back on the bed so his head brushes the far wall. After a moment, he speaks again, soft and thoughtful. "We were thirteen."

"Fuck," you breathe out, lay down beside him. Your hands knock together but you don't flinch away, and everything is okay. "You're right. Goddamn."

"Those're some formative years we lost, never gettin' those back, no sir. Sayonara puberty."

"You're telling me, Rose was almost my height for like, seven months. Horrible. She kept asking if I wanted to trade clothes."

"Did you?"

"Fuck no. Have you seen this tight lil hood? Shit is unparalleled."

"I think you're just saying that because you're a gross creep who refused to change," he snorts, elbows you hard.

You huff, push him away. "Dude fuck off, they're self-cleaning."

He does laugh, then, and the two of you lull into silence.

You guess it could have gone worse, telling him about Bro. You guess it kinda did go worse, but at least only for you and him, and not anyone else. Not Dirk.

There's probably some flaws in your logic.

"Jade was taller than John or I for like, two years," he blurts, and you keep quiet a moment longer. His voice is amusement, and it's wistful, and it's sad. You don't really want him to shut up, and you're afraid that if you speak, he'll stop. "Nanna kept a height chart on the main deck. I told her she didn't have to, y'know, but John and his dad kept one in the office, and I had always wondered - well. I dunno. We saw that on TV and shit growing up I guess."

You hesitate for a second, but he just shrugs, and you stare at the blank ceiling, think about all the shit you two missed out on, as kids. Think about how even though he was really isolated from John and Jade, he did have John's Nanna there, an actual adult.

You don't regret the three shitty years you spent on the meteor, but you do feel almost a little jealous, just for a second, that he has someone so warm as Jane. Or a version of her, anyway.

What you say is, "How do you tell where you tail ended and your legs began?" and he lets out an indignant protest, then smacks you in the face with his pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um! sorry!  
> this is like, first chapter of a two-dave-chapter bonanza!  
> i guess that's not really a bonanza  
> the next one is just  
> different in tone lol  
> hope you enjoyed!


	45. temporal deadzone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dave walks himself in circles and has a hard conversation. it had to happen eventually, he just hadn't planned it being so soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi just wanna start but saying this is a pretty rough chapter for me personally and that a large portion of it is!  
> well you know the "i wrote this for me but y'all can read it if you want"  
> like that but if it wasn't cute or fun in any way.  
> in which we find out alpha Dave is kind of a dick, but probably not as bad as everyone else thinks he is.
> 
> cw for open discussions of child abuse, drug mentions, lots of swearing for no reason, and a conversation with no real good resolution.  
> we've gotten this far!

You don’t sleep after that, of course you don’t, how could you, how could you whenever you close your eyes and feel the blood oozing between your fingers, feel your guts trying not to pool onto the floor from the tear through your middle, see Bro’s face, then Dirk’s, then Bro’s again.

You can’t unload on Dirk again, because like it or not, Dave’s words still sting (you  _know_  you project onto Dirk you  _know_ you shouldn’t constantly blurt out your every thought to the dude but there is something about his face that just makes you lose it, and you go full Girl Talk on his ass), and you recognize that you both still have and need boundaries.

He’s also upstairs with Roxy while they group chat with Jane and Jake, and you ain’t steppin’ foot in that fucking disaster.

Not that you’re any better, though, are you?

Except that feels pretty unfair, okay, you aren’t, you aren’t a mess. You’re not supposed to be a mess, you weren’t half as neurotic in the game, were you? Where do you even get this shit?

Three boring ass years on the meteor, maybe.

You wonder how Dave can handle it at all, knowing that. His tie to you, to the other versions of you, and you think it sounds exhausting, to feel all the layers of yourself folded over each other like that, when you can barely handle two. Nauseating, honestly.

You kinda miss when the only thing you had to worry about was whether or not you’d have enough red chalk because Terezi wouldn’t stop eating it all.

You guess that sounds pretty childish of you. Maybe that’s an okay thing to be sometimes, though.

So you wandered down to the kitchen thought, hell, why not grab a midnight snack? Why not just take a little detour into the living room with your illegal as hell snack pack and,

and proceed to think “Wow Bro’s probably lurking around in the dark somewhere” and now you’re just.

Standing in the middle of the room, holding an unopened pudding cup watching the snow fall outside and wondering why you didn’t think of that before.

The Lalonde Manor is definitely creepy as all get out, at night. It’s been pissing rain or shitting snow for the past week in uneven spurts and the high windows can’t glean fuck all from the slate-dark sky. You know damn well the place ain’t haunted. No one’s ever lived here, aside from Mom and Rose, and other than the giant wizard statues, there’s really not much in the way of jump scares hiding around the corners.

Except now there is precisely one giant, traveling jump scare who, alright, you’ll admit it, you don’t think is doing it on purpose, he’s just fuckin’.

 _Like_  that.

It doesn’t make the prospect of running into him any better.

Mostly because you’re still not entirely sure what exactly you want to say.

“I missed you” is fucked up, if true, or if you did actually miss him at all, and not just the  _idea_  of your apartment in Texas which just so happens to come with one (1) Bro Strider decoration attached.

“Hey what’s up” is lame.

“Fuck you” is just par for the course, at this point.

For a verbose little shitbag, you sure are coming up empty-handed and empty-headed.

Not what you’d call your proudest moment.

You can’t even ask Dave what you should say because you’re still a little jealous and at this point? Not even sure you  _want_ his advice. He’d just say “oh my god just talk to him” and you’d be like well I can’t, and he’d ask why, and you’d say “I don’t know” and it would be a huge waste of time.

So instead of doing that, instead of being productive, you start wearing a hole in the Lalondes’ floor and hope that if you work at it fast enough, pace hard enough, you’ll drop through the floor and just. Go plunging into the icy water below, you guess.

Jesus, morbid.

The thin light that leaks through the windows shades everything in levels of blue, and it makes you,

Sad.

It makes you think about lying face down on the cold blue stone of John’s planet, because you didn’t want to (couldn’t) face Bro again, not even dead, and you almost just fling yourself onto the couch out of frustration.

Would probably be easier for you to just cave, go back upstairs and harass Rose, lay everything out and submit to the fact that she’ll have blackmail for years following.

Except um? No? Yuck.

Maybe you should just go to bed, but you don’t want to sleep, don’t wanna face any bad dreams. How fucking hard you’ve worked, not to dream of anything at all. 

Guess it had to all come back around some time.

You sit in silence, hear the tick in your head, strings of two and two and two and you fight the urge to let it consume you.

It’d be so easy, to let go, to drag time through your fingers like water, reach in and just.

It’s fine.

Being a god? Probably not a big deal.

You are a god, aren’t you?

Maybe. Maybe you’re a god, but maybe you’re just a scared kid with some weird powers who just wants to be able to talk to his bro so he can prove to everyone that he isn’t afraid of him anymore.

Except you are.

Just a little.

It’s a point of frustration for you, or maybe just something that you’ll never quite shake, the intimidation factor, how your stomach dips when he frowns, how he’s so quiet, so fucking quiet with every step, every motion, and it drives you absolutely nuts. Infuriating, terrifying.

It’s not even like he really stands over you, now, not as tall as he seemed to be when you were little, when you were still growing. You’re catching up (you’ll never get there though, will you, fuck) and soon you’ll be able to look at him without lifting your eyes quite so high.

There’s an impossibility to Bro, to confronting him,and it rolls around inside you like water over a carcass washed up on the shore.

That’s morbid, try again?

Nah fuck that you’re the kind of morbid, tonight and every other, and anyway you’re like. Not even as bad as Aradia was, okay.

Time buddies for life but she has some fucked up hobbies, and her obsession with funerals seems matched only by Roxy’s desire to see a real one.

Oh god you’re surrounded by weirdos, huh.

Says you, who collects dead shit. Who thinks, you know, it might be kinda cool to do that again?

Like you could still presumably got college shit to figure out one day, if Bro is serious about that.

And maybe that’d be cool, if school weren’t so boring still, if you didn’t have such a hard time paying attention, pencil tapping, foot shaking, bored bored  _bored_ and

Well. Bro did let you do the online shit, didn’t he. Still ain’t complaining about that, how can you, when he always marked your homework on time, even if you slid it under the door at four AM.

Anyway, point is, you might have to worry about college like some kind of average American Joe one day and that is hilariously messed up.

Saved the whole world, brought two universes crashing back to life in one go, and you still gotta finish high school, junior. Buck the fuck up. This ain’t junior high no more.

With the way you can feel the age of things, like a read out on a monitor, easy as breathing, the paleontology shit would be a breeze, your classmates wouldn’t have shit on you.

Is that cheating?

That’s probably cheating.

You’re so caught up in your thoughts that the tick fades away, a distant echo, thought perished, dead and gone, so of course you flinch when you hear feet on the stairs, of course Caledfwlch slides free from your ‘dex, so fast and easy, like you were meant to hold it, like it was made for you (because it was), and it’s been awhile since you’ve been jumpy like this (because you haven’t had to deal with Bro for the past week), but you nearly drop it when you see yourself but slanted sideways, standing halfway down with a hand on the banister.

“Hey,” he says.

“Uh,” you say.

“Two hander,” he comments, puts his hands in his pockets. “Must be heavy.”

“It is,” you say carefully, throw it back in with a spin and a flick. Godtier has negated the necessity of a strife deck, but you can’t just put it in your sylladex, you cannot just rap a beat, freestyle, in front of a

a stranger?

Some random dude, at least.

He’s you but he isn’t, is he, long past dead, or should be dead, or was dead, and you feel nothing when you look at him except something bordering on awkward dread.

There’s a beat of silence that you resent, a note that hangs in the air between you before he shifts. The stair squeaks. Neither of you mention it.

“That’s pretty sick,” he says, like it’s a compliment (you guess it is), and you really wish you could explain what it is about this guy, this you but wrong. There’s something off about his age, his and Big Rose’s, and it calls out to you, singing like metal, like a shift in paradox space, the smell of burnt steak and a stomach ache that you can never quite shake.

He’s younger now than when he died, but the him now is.

God who fucking knows.

You’re not an expert.

(You kind of are.)

You don’t even know how your powers work anymore, like you dropped ass first back onto planet Earth missing your how-to guide and now you’re just standing here with your dick out, pants around your ankles while everyone stares.

“I guess so,” you say, because the quiet has never sat well on you, not even when it’s someone you don’t particularly like (and how funny, that the first adult you’ve ever truly disliked, beyond Bro, is just you, of course it is). “Honestly I think it’s the shittiest possible version of the sword? Like this is base level baby nonsense, hundred iterations and this is the one I’m stuck with and it - well it just sucks. Trust me. I hate it.”

The tip of his head is so familiar you almost resent that, too. “Then why do you keep it?”

You blink. No one’s ever. Asked you that before. “Because -”

Because this is the sword that cut off Dirk’s head, maybe, because it cut through his sword like paper, because when both Jacks died, part of you felt like a hero.

You lick your lips, feel the sword burn a whole in your strife deck, feel it switch to full bladekind, so useless to you now, and you manage a shrug. “Because it’s my responsibility, I guess.”

“I feel like it’s a really fucked up thing to say to a kid, but you have heard the phrase ‘carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders’, I hope,” he says, raises an eyebrow.

You struggle not to scowl. “I mean, yeah, duh, I am from this fucking century, y’know. I’m not some kind of weirdass time-warped jackoff. But it’s not the weight of anything, it’s just one shitty sword. S’not like I even beat the game with it or anything, I just killed some dudes and a whole lot of other people did the rest. Wasn’t even the main point of the whole thing in the first place, all we were supposed to do was grow a goddamn frog, and we just  _barely_ managed that part.”

“Frog,” he murmurs. “Right.”

“Well.” You shrug again, look at the floor. You dropped your pudding up and it’s rolled away. There’s no way in hell you’re moving to go get it. “Someone’s gotta take care of it. May as well be me.”

He makes a soft sound, and you consider leaving, debate the odds of scooting around him and retreating upstairs without actually having to touch. “You did good,” he says, awkwardly. “All you kids, in the face of - you did good.”

You swallow. It’s not like you have relied on praise from adults really at all, your entire life. Bro’s approval was borderline impossible to acquire, let alone parse at all, and the first time you ever truly got it, you nearly passed out in fear, thinking you’d flayed the guy and he was going to - punish you, somehow.

So you don’t know what to say.

And you don’t feel like the hero anymore, just feel tired and worn down, arms heavy, legs frozen and joints stiff. “Thanks, I guess,” you manage weakly.

He watches you a moment and you wonder if it’s because you’re used to other Daves all being your age, or if it’s because you know Dirk looks up to him, but you don’t think he’s particularly cool. Just tall, maybe a little intimidating.

And that frustrates you, because Dirk doesn’t have this problem with Bro, didn’t have anything to live up to, and you know this guy has seen war, has seen death, and he’s still.

Well he looks like you.

Dark shades, baggy sweatpants and bright, ugly orange Whataburger shirt.

He just looks like some random guy.

“Don’t mention it,” he says, makes his way down the rest of the stairs, slow enough that you take a step back, not afraid just.

Uncertain.

Prepared.

“What’re you doin’, anyway,” he tries, awkward but conversational. “Not to judge or anything but it’s pretty late for a kid to be up, ain’t it?

“No,” you scoff. “And I ain’t a kid.”

He arches a brow again, and you can see Dirk’s learned traits in the lines on his forehead. Bizarre. “You’re like what, sixteen? That makes you a kid.”

“Almost seventeen now,” you say, like it matters. The space between you stretches for miles and everything about him feels unfamiliar, crushing in on you in a way you can’t explain. “I guess my - our? Birthday is next month. That’s neat. Dunno what the fuck we’re gonna do for that. Haven’t majorly celebrated in straight up three years - no Chuck E. Cheese in the medium, you feel? Rose always wanted to make a bigger deal than I did.”

“Ain’t you a bit old for Chuck E. Cheese?”

“I was being hyperbolic and we both know it,” you huff. “I dunno if they even still _have_  Chuck E. Cheese. There coulda been a cataclysmic giant mouse extermination worldwide in between 2009 and 2012 and I’d have never goddamn known.”

“So what did you do, then?”

You stop, blink. “What?”

His mouth is a straight, solid line, and you think about how he and Bro probably had the same childhood, because how messed up is the idea of a Scratch? Pretty fucked. “Before the game. You ‘n your bro.”

“Uh.” You wrack your brain. It feels so long ago. You remember it usually rained, you remember being glad you never had to physically go to school on your own birthday. “Mostly he let me sleep in, for a bit. Sometimes he’d buy me dead shit off eBay that’d I’d been begging him for, for weeks. If I didn’t get up for his shitty store bought cake, eventually he’d drop a pile of smuppets on me. All _‘get up now, I’m not bringing you cake in bed, does this look like a bed and breakfast to you, dumbass? Fuck no it don’t we eat in the living room like civilized people’_.”

“He actually got you a cake?”

“Yeah, sometimes. I mean a lot of the time he felt like a weird robot with no concept of human interaction at all but he at least knew what a birthday meant. We didn’t have to - have to strife. On days like that.”

“You two strife often?” It feels like he’s fishing for information, but his voice is controlled monotone, and you struggle against the anxiety that surrounds it.

“Not like it amounted to much of anything, but yeah.” You flex your fingers, use your thumb to push down your joints under the pop. “Why?”

He shrugs. “Just curious, I guess. Dirk mentioned your relationship growing up was kinda shitty. Figure it wasn’t much fun for you.”

“It wouldn’t be much fun for anyone,” you snap, but you don’t know. You’ve seen Dirk, you know him, you know he’d take that kind of behavior and just -

But he’s a good person, Dirk. He’s a better person than you were ever expecting.

“Look, no offense, but can we not talk about this? I don’t really know you that well and it’s kind of fucked up and weird.”

“Okay, alright,” he says, but it’s voice is low, and he raises a placating hand. “Won’t get too personal on the first awkward midnight meeting. Supremely uncool. I get it.” It bothers you.

You grind your teeth together and don’t snap because you don’t want to do this right now, and he doesn’t deserve to see, anyway. You’re not mad at Dirk, for saying - whatever it was, but you feel a pit grow in your stomach, just a notch at a time.

It’s going to come up again, you just fuckin’ know it.

“Did you want something?” you ask, rude as you have the right to be.

“Not exactly. At least, not from you.” He steps off that last stair and you almost flinch, don’t get the chance because suddenly he’s in front of the door.

Well that’s just.

You mean.

Holy fuck he’s fast but that’s just showing off.

He’s got enough years on you to justify it, you guess.

“What are you doing?” you ask, think you sound childish, defensive.

He glances back at you, one hand on the door. “Cigarettes.”

You stare.

He stares back.

There’s something to be said about two idiots wearing sunglasses indoors in the middle of the night.

“I’m going to buy cigarettes.” He waggles the keyring at you. There’s a little pink cat hanging from the end. Those are Mom’s keys. You should say something.

You don’t.

It’s very quiet.

He clears his throat. “Do you uh, wanna come?”

His voice is lower than yours, rougher, and it bothers you a bit, how his accent dips, just like Bro’s, a cadence you never quite caught onto.

You bite the inside of your cheek, listen for the tick of a clock. “The store is forty minutes away.”

“Well, better get drivin’ then, if I wanna grab Taco Bell before the drive-thru closes.” He cocks his head again, but you get the idea that he’s taunting you, that there is something almost cruel to his actions, and you frown.

“You’re going by yourself? In the snow? You’re not even wearing a coat.”

“Driving in the snow ain’t that hard, kid,” he scoffs, dropping one from his sylladex and pulling it on with the pointed raise of his brows. “Got plenty of practice, anyway. Only wimps are afraid of icy roads. You think I got time for that? I’m a busy dude with fucked up priorities.” He swings the door open and the cold air hits you so hard you shiver. “Come or don’t, but I ain’t gonna wait all night. You can ask if he wants to come, I guess, but he was chattin’ with his buddies last I checked, so.”

You consider it, you do.

This is pretty much stranger danger to the highest degree, except in a weird alternate universe where the dude in question is also yourself, and he’s asking if you want to go on a forty minute drive through the woods in the middle of the night go get cigarettes (and maybe Taco Bell, if you’re lucky).

You could just say now, obviously, it’s not like anything would change. You’d say no, he’d say okay, and you’d go back to bed.

But you’re.

You’re curious, and fuck what a shitty trait to have, burning curiosity and a brain that won’t shut the fuck up, and you KNOW he just fuckin’ asked about Bro’s - your shit. Your messed up shit, like he was asking if it was raining outside and that’s pretty messed up.

This guy might be a little messed up.

“It’s pretty gross that you smoke,” you say instead, and then you drop a pair of shoes from your dex and shuffle your feet into them.

What the fuck are you doing?

“No offense or anything but like, kinda seems like a waste of money and time.”

You guess you’re,

being kind of weird?

This is definitely weird.

“Kid,” he sighs, and he holds the door open for you as you slide past him, “I wouldn’t have survived a day in Hollywood if I didn’t.”

“I think that’s a pretty shitty coping mechanism.” There’s a couple’a inches stuck out here. Forget cigarettes, you might have to stock up on snacks if you’re gonna get trapped in this horseshit.

“Being an adult is all about finding shitty methods to cope with stress. Dunno who told you any different. ‘Sides, doesn’t your bro smoke?”

“Yeah, but that’s different,” you huff, careful as you drop down the ice-slick stairs. “Hey doesn’t do it in front of me or Dave.” You pause at the bottom to look back at him, both eyebrows raised. “Ever.”

“Yeah, I just bet,” he mutters, jamming his thumb on the key fob until the lights flash in the dark. “No offense kid, but your bro is kind of a dick.”

“I think it’s probably part for the course when it comes to guardians,” you say, yanking the passenger door open. “I mean. Barring like, Mom and John’s Nanna, I guess. They’re alright. I think being a jackass might be genetic, at this point.”

Old Dave gives you a flat look as you climb into the passenger’s seat, and you almost startle when he shoves his shades up and you get a peek at his eyes; crimson, darker than yours, at least in the weak light of the radio’s LEDs.

“What the fuck are you doing,” you say slowly, carefully, as you tug your seatbelt on (only one rule in your house growing up: buck in or get the fuck out).

He stares at you, and it’s weirdest without the glasses in the way, the familiar shape of his eyes, short lashes, a line at the corner of his mouth that you hope, desperately, you don’t inherit when you get old. “I ain’t driving anywhere with my -” He wiggles the shades at you. “There aren’t safe for night driving, you know that, right?”

You purse your lips. He raises an eyebrow, expectant. You don’t move. Fuck him, these puppies are stayin’ right where they belong.

He just snorts softly, then starts the engine and puts it in reverse.

This might be on the list of the weirdest shit you’ve ever done, but you’re at least familiar now, with the drive towards town, even in the dark, towering trees and sprinkles of snow.

You don’t feel safe here, don’t think you’re meant to, in the middle of the woods, in the middle of nowhere, New York.

(You’re still not entirely sure how Jade’s grandpa managed to shell out the cash required to build a house on top of a waterfall, don’t really want to know.)

You wanna go home.

Some days it’s all you think about, when you hear the sing of crickets, when you hear croaking frogs (and god how your stomach turns, how nauseous you feel, like you’re being pelted with bullets all over again, spat into you like nails, like you’re going to die, like you’re dying all over again), and you long for the stench of the city, or if nothing else, the cool stench of the meteor.

“So you like, know Dirk really well, right?” His voice is enough to snap you back like a rubber band, if for no other reason than it’s still unfamiliar to you (or too familiar, but on the wrong side of the line).

You look at him, squint through your glasses, realize how dumb you’re being. You can’t see for shit like this and being stubborn isn’t worth the eye strain, is it.

“Uh,” you start, lifting them up and pushing them into your hair, “not to sound like a dick, because I know we just barely fuckin’ know each other? But no shit, dude. Or did you miss out on the part where we’ve been sharing a room - and I mean that literally, paradox fucked us for space - for the past seven months? Reckon I can’t actually blame you for that, because you were like. Still dead or just, uh, not alive, I guess, at the time.”

Old Dave makes a sound stuck between a snort and a laugh and wipes a hand down his face. It’s kind of odd to see him like this, in his fancy ass winter coat, thrown over a pair of faded, well-loved sweatpants. You guess it reminds you of Bro a little, and the thought is almost enough to make you smile. “Jesus, kid, you’re like. The worst possible version of a blast from the past.”

You frown, adjust til you can pull your legs up and put them on the dash. If anyone gets in trouble, you figure it’ll probably be him. Mom is too soft on you. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. Just weird. “I’m not gonna pretend that wasn’t hella fuckin’ insulting, dude, but just gonna be real? Your people skills - like your kid skills? Fucking suck.”

He almost-laughs again. “Sorry. It’s been - it’s just. Weird. This is really weird. I shouldn’t have asked you to come with. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“That you could squeeze info about Dirk outta me, apparently,” you say, shove your hands into your pockets to hold onto your phone. The signal out here is supremely bad, but you think if you need to call Mom or Rose, they’d probably come get you anyway.

“Can I?” he asks, glances away from the road and over to you.

“I don’t know how to answer that question,” you admit. The snow’s falling heavier, but you don’t swerve on the road, even as the tracks of past drivers slowly disappear. “Some days, I feel like I barely know the guy. I spend all this time with him and he still -” He didn’t tell you about Bro. You’re trying not to hold it against him. You don’t think that was really his fault, or really his responsibility at all. “I guess he’s just kinda weird.”

“Weird,” Dave mutters. “Why is everyone in this family so fucking weird?”

“Hey, wouldn’t count yourself outta that,” you drawl. “This is super fucked up, okay, it’s like midnight goddamn thirty -” you know damn well what time it is but it doesn’t matter it doesn’t matter “and we’re on our way to a mini-mart in a snow storm. If we’re goin’ to some back alley drug deal or some shit? I am totally snitching on you, and I want you to know that.”

He clucks his tongue, frowning, taps his fingers. He doesn’t drive like bro, one hand on the top of the steering wheel, switching it with the other at odd and probably unsafe intervals. You’d be more impressed if you weren’t mildly terrified. “We’re not going to buy weed in the middle of New York. Shit’s expensive as fuck, and anyway, what is this, 2012? S’already legal in Washington. Could have my man Crocker hook me up in a heartbeat. ‘Sides, Snitchin’ ain’t cool, man.”

“Fuck you, Bro would literally kill me if I went to a midnight drug deal with some half-ass Dave -” He lets out a cry of protest and goes to shove you, but you laugh, curve away from him. “And if he finds out, I’m gonna have to straight up report back with your whole stash so he can make sure I didn’t so much as look at a single goddamn one.”

Old Dave snorts, both hands on the wheel for a fleeting, merciful second. “Doesn’t exactly come across as the D.A.R.E. type to me.”

“He’s not, I don’t think.” You shrug. “I mean like, who the fuck doesn’t smoke weed or whatever? That’s just older brother 101. Or I think it is. I don’t have a very good point of reference, y’know.”

He grimaces, and you see that line pull again. “I’m - I shouldn’t have brought that up. ‘Bout your bro. And I feel pretty lousy about it now.”

“Well,” you say, and then struggle to find something else. You guess he  _does_ spend a lot of time with your Bro, and they’re. Friends? Or at least tolerate each other better than you’ve ever seen Bro tolerate anyone who isn’t Mom (or, by extension, Roxy). “I mean, you’re me, sort of, and I guess maybe it is something other people should - should know. Maybe. Who knows what kinda fucked up cross-contamination happened during the Scratch, I coulda given you all sorts of useless pervasive issues -”

“I’m older than you.”

“And,” you continue over him, “if I did, I - you should know about it.” You drop your eyes, pick at the cup holder. “It’s just not very simple to talk about.”

“Family ain’t ever simple, kid,” he sighs.

“It’s Dave,” you say. He doesn’t respond so you roll your eyes, look out the window. “Look, okay, it wasn’t - I guess I thought it was normal, growing up, how we’d fight, and I thought that was just some shit that happened that would make me stronger, or cooler, or. Something. But when we strifed, I mostly just felt scared? Training, y’know. He called it training. But it sucked, and it was hard, and I didn’t....” He bite your lip, curl your hand into a useless fist. 

“Didn’t want to,” he says softly.

You nod. “He never actually cut me with his sword, and it used to feel like a taunt, to me, like he thought I couldn’t take it, like I was still a little kid all fumbling around with my dick in my hand, but the dick is a sword and all I ever did was slice my own damn fingers open because swords? Way heavier than they look.”

You drop your head back against the headrest, sigh. You haven’t thought about it in awhile, in the same way you’re always thinking about it, in the same way you can never  _stop_ thinking about it. Repetitive obsession, like Dirk’s head in your hands, like your sword across his throat, like the sing of metal and Bro’s voice saying _“Get up, let’s try that again.”_

“I ain’t sayin’ he ever pulled his punches, I know that was some - some fucky shit right there. But there were times when I thought ‘oh god I’m actually going to die this time’ and then he’d. He’d stop. Point blank, poised to strike, and then suddenly... nothing. Like it was all some fucked up mind game. I didn’t know why he was like that as a kid, don’t really know, now, if it’s -” If it was Lil Cal, if it was just part of his cruelty, if there was something  _wrong_ with you, but you. You don’t know. “I guess he said before, that when you strike, you strike to -”

“Kill,” old Dave says, voice hollow, perfect monotone.

You nod, swallow heavy. You didn’t think you’d ever be here, didn’t think, out of anyone, you’d be here with your alternate self, laying all this shit on the table like you’re gettin’ ready for a family picnic, like it’s that simple. That easy.

Dave is quiet, taps his fingers on the wheel, same as Bro. One two three, pause, back three two one. “You hate him?” he asks.

“Yes,” you say, simple as anything. “Well, no. Maybe? Not - not the same way I used to. Before. When things were different. He was different. And I definitely like him a whole lot better now? But I guess he’s still a little scary, sometimes. I know that sounds lame.” You curl your hands over your kneecaps, tap your feet together idly. “But - I wanna think he’s changed, y’know, because he does seem like he’s trying to be good, or, or better, right, because people can always be better, or I want them to. I want him to, y’know, but I dunno. Maybe I’m expecting too much? Maybe I don’t really get him. I don’t think he’s - well. I don’t know.”

He hums, and for a beat all you can hear is the sound of the chains on the tire, the wet smack of snow against the windshield. You consider opening the door and rolling right the fuck out so you don’t keep talking. “Cool,” he says finally, shifts in his seat. “I mean. Not cool that - it doesn’t matter but - okay.”

“I’m not mad you’re like, friends or whatever,” you tell him, just in case he worries about that kind of thing. Because you worry about that kind of thing. “Like I said, our history is pretty fucked up. But I really think he’s... improved?”

“I think it’s a little disconcerting that  _that_ is improvement.”

“Then you clearly don’t know him very well,” you say, manage a smile. “That’s just Bro being Bro stuff. It’s kind of funny, actually.”

“You’re only saying that because you don’t have to share a room with him,” Dave sighs, and you do almost laugh.

 “I wouldn’t want to.  He like, snores and shit.”

“No he doesn’t,” he huffs.

“Has he dropped smuppets on you yet?”

“Is that,” Dave chokes, “a concern?”

“I don’t actually know,” you say. “Pretty sure this whole thing counts as some kind of shitty extended vacation for him, don’t think he’d bother bringing a whole slew of the damn things.”

“Got that in common, then, him and Dirk,” he asks.

“Yeah,” you say.

“Puppets,” he sighs.

“Puppets,” you agree. “They don’t bother me as much as they used to, since Dirk’s kinda - you know. Like that, too. Pretty sure right before our final battle all I did was yell at him about puppets and shit.” You really went off on the guy. He didn’t react the way you thought he might, and even now, you’re pretty sure that’s a good thing. You probably needed it, at that point. “I feel really bad about that, actually, because that’s the first thing I said to him, and definitely one of the last things we talked about right before he kicked it. He must’ve thought I was nuts. Anyway, it’s like - okay so they’re weird, right? But I can’t actually fathom the idea of Bro without -”

Old Dave slams on the breaks in the middle of the road and you almost get choked out by your seatbelt, cough up and spit all over yourself as your curse.

“What the  _fuck_ is wrong with you?” You gasp, but he ain’t playing around, straight up turns off the car and flips the light on and you see, immediately, that you fucked up.

You fucked this guy up.

His face is deadly pale in the car light, sallow, dark circles deep and prominent, eyes haunted and intense in a way you don’t think yours will ever be. There’s lines around them that you have never seen around yours and you feel,

You feel uncomfortable, with the cut of his jaw, more Bro than you, feel some terror, in the pale scruff that grows on his chin.

“I’m gonna need you to say that slower,” he says, and there is no kindness in his voice, nothing like emotion leaking through the cracks.

“Say what?” you ask, and know immediately you shouldn’t.

“Dirk _died_ ,” he barks, leaning across the console, and you cringe. “Fuck’s sake, you think you can just  _say_ that shit? You think I ain’t gonna want to know exactly what the _fuck_  that means?”

“Well,” you choke, want to lean back, have nowhere to go. Your hand scrambles to find the door hand, and he reaches out, snatches your wrist away.

“This isn’t a joke, kid.”

“My name is Dave,” you say weakly.

“Dave,” he says, but it’s Bro’s voice, it’s warning, it’s cruelty, and his grip is tight to the point of pain, makes you suck in air, bite your lip.

“I cut off his head in the final battle and it was a Heroic death,” you spit, all at once. “And he would have died, he would’ve been dead forever and ever if Jane hadn’t been there, she brought him back, he’s okay now, but it’s my fault, I’m the one who killed him but I had to, he wanted me to, it was our best option and he asked me to do it.”

Old Dave drops you like a dead fish as he draws back, collapsing into his seat, and there’s drama to it, his long limbs, the limp way his hand rests over the cup holder. “Okay,” he says softly. Wipes a hand over his mouth, stares blankly out at the road, and you hear the clock beat forward one note, then two. “Okay.”

You struggle for something to say because you’ve never been put into a situation like this before, and because his anger reminds you so much of Bro that you wonder, for a moment, if you’ll grow up to be just like that. Quiet, shaky rage, nothing like the movies, nothing like TV. Wonder if that’s what Bro’d look like, if he found out you died, if you had been in Dirk’s place.

You sit in the car in the middle of the road and without the heat on, you imagine a thin layer of cold start to settle over the both of you.

“That was a really fucked up thing for you to do,” you finally say, when it’s been another minute and neither of you has moved. You don’t have to be afraid of him. Fuck that, he’s not Bro.

“Yeah,” he says, tone distracted. “I shouldn’t have - yeah. Fuck. Sorry.” He looks at you, eyebrows tipped together in the center, and you think he just looks sad, looks miserable. “I’m so sorry, kid.”

“Dave,” you say.

“Dave,” he murmurs, and you feel everything inside you tighten up, your own voice reflected back, your own voice skewed, like seeing Dave for the first time again, back on LOHAC, eyes wide and panicked behind his shades, drenched in sweat and telling you _“Don't let him go, you can’t let him go.”_

“I shouldn’t have reacted like that like that, I just didn’t - he didn’t tell me about -”

He puts his hands over his face, hides his eyes there. You watch him curl forward, spine in a C curve, terrible posture, just like you, just like Dirk. All of you are similar, huh. There’s something almost endearing to that, or perhaps worrying, that you’ll be so old and yet so unable to handle your own shit.

The way he peeks back at you, through his fingers, is so familiar you’re almost embarrassed. “So if he dies again -”

“Only if it’s Heroic or Just,” you say, shake your head. “Rules aren’t the same when you’re godtier. Although to be honest I don’t actually know if, uh. If they still apply? Now that we’re not in the game.”

That apparently isn’t a better answer, because he makes a horrible sound in the back of his throat, and you feel twice as bad.

“Sorry,” you say.

“Just try not to fucking die again, maybe, any of you,” he mutters.

You hum, fidget with the locking mechanism.

The clock ticks forward. 

He presses his face to the wheel.

It’s kind of funny, how much it reminds you of that day you told Bro about Dirk, sitting in the CVS parking lot, the way he got out of the truck, your nightmarish and hysterical first driving lesson.

Haha.

“Why did you ask me about Bro?” you ask, don’t demand, voice soft, kind of. Worried. Maybe you’ve just never really been in a situation where the adult in control is so similar to you.

Or maybe it’s because like Roxy’s mom, he reminds you of Bro.

They’re closer, in a way.

That bothers you.

Old Dave sighs, bonks his head against the horn. It makes a tiny, sad sound. “I guess I just see a lot of good there, in him. And maybe I’m wrong, maybe I shouldn’t have jumped the gun on - on all the shit I say and do for the dude, but -”

“I don’t think he’s evil,” you blurt. He turns his head to look at you curiously. “Or, or I want to not think that. Mostly he just feels like a weird dude now, like he’s still the same dude I grew up with, obviously, just, um. Not as scary? He talks more. I’ve seen him smile. That shit matters. It’s kind of. It’s been.. It feels good. It feels like there can be good.”

“You don’t have to do that, y’know,” he says.

You flinch back. “What?”

Dave makes a soft sound, but reaches out, squeezes your knee. “It’s alright to be mad about the shit that happened to you, and it’s okay not to be cool with that.”

“I’m not,” you snap, smack him away. You laugh, but you’re miserable again. Ashamed in a way you can’t explain. You used to be embarrassed that you couldn’t handle a beatdown, that you wanted to sit inside with him every day, that you just wanted to play games and chill ALL the time, but you ground that down, you unlearned that shit.

Sitting here, sitting with this Dave, it feels like you have to live it all, all over again.

“It’s like, even though I know? That I should hate him, kinda do, mostly don’t, that’d it’d be easy? I’ve also seen how much things are different now, without Cal, without the game fucking us over. He’s calmed down a lot,” you tell him. “And he ain’t perfect, and he’s definitely shitty, but he’s still my Bro.”

You keep your eyes down, pick at the edge of your pajama pants.

“Is it fucked up that I want to believe he’s a good person? That all the messed up shit was just that? Messed up shit that may have an explanation, may not, I don’t know, because I’m afraid to fucking talk to him, god, whatever, but I just - want him to be. I don’t really wanna talk about - I mean I know I said a lot of shit but. Can we please change the subject?”

“Yeah,” he says, and he doesn’t try to touch you again. “Yeah, a’ight. You wanna just - should I take you home? You wanna go home?”

“I do,” you say, feel a bitter smile curve onto your face. “But not the one you’re thinking of. It’s okay, we can go, I guess.”

“Cool,” old Dave says, and then he starts up the car and you sit in silence the rest of the way.

 

You fall asleep at some point, without meaning to, head against the window, nothing but the vibration of the car in your ears, cheek to the cool glass, and you’re out like a light, don’t remember getting to the store, don’t even wake until you’re being lifted from the passenger seat at all.

“Wh--” you manage, flail as hands wrestle you from the passenger seat, wrapped around your middle. You smack at the attacker, stop short of grabbing your sword, manage to fling something free from your sylladex with a stuttered curse.

“Knock it off, you fuckin’ monkey,” a familiar voice grunts, swinging you over his shoulder, and you only freeze for a moment before you realize it’s just Bro.

Oh, it’s just Bro.

“I can walk,” you slur, kick half-heartedly at his chest.

“Sure you can, but there’s about a foot of snow out here and you’re wearin’ Chucks. You want me to put you down?”

You huff, grabbing your shades before the fall, and curl your other hand into the back of his shirt, and is he -

he’s wearing a goddamn T-shirt out here in the goddamn snow, Jesus who the fuck is this dude?

You stare at the ground as he starts to walk, look at the canyons his footprints leave behind. “I guess not.”

“Then stop bitching.”

Old Dave snickers, sliding up beside him, and you almost  fall asleep like that, swaying awkwardly with each and every step.

“I hate you,” you mumble, smack him in the side. “Both of you.”

“I know,” Bro says, and that bothers you, it bothers you because this is the first time you’ve talked this entire time and you said you hated him.

“I didn’t mean to - fuck you,” you said instead.

Par for the course.

“I could drop you,” he replies.

“But you won’t,” you and Dave say at the same time, in the same tone.

“But I won’t,” he sighs, jostling you just because he can, and because he’s a fucking dick.

You wonder if this is how Dave felt, those first couple weeks. Decide that’s an inappropriate comparison.

He drops you on the couch when you get inside, a stutter out his nose as you curse his name, and you lay there a minute, face down, don’t flinch when you feel the cushions by your feet sink in.

“Sorry,” old Dave murmurs to Bro, like he thinks you won’t hear it. “No offense, but I didn’t think I could carry him myself.”

“S’okay,” Bro says, but it’s softer than you’ve heard in a long damn time. You hear the rustle of plastic, then his scoff. “Seriously? Pall Malls?”

“Fuck you, they’re better than your fuck nasty shit.”

Bro mutters something under his breath, but it doesn’t sound half as angry.

They sound like they get along okay, you think. Like you and Dirk, but worse. Is that weird? That’s weird.

You tuck your arms up by your face, close your eyes. You’re tired now, don’t wanna get up, and you could just sleep here, nice and easy.

“Hey,” Bro says, shakes your leg.

You groan, kick him again.

“Get up. Your mom’ll kill me if she finds you out here in the morning.”

“Can’t you just stay out here with me?” you whine, curl up away from him.

He inhales, sighs out his nose.

Dave snickers again. “I’ll go get Dirk. C’mon, we can pretend it’s a movie night.”

“Roxy ain’t gonna buy that.”

“Yeah she totally will and you know it. You’re just no fun.”

“Just - get Dave,” Bro says, gentle as anything. “Careful wakin’ him, kid can spit a sword better’n most people spit rhymes.”

And you want to complain, because Bro has never complimented your rap game like that, how goddamn rude, you’ve gotten close to beating him at least like, twice. Could probably do even better now that you’re older. He ain’t even heard your sick-ass Obama game.

“What, can’t do anything yourself?” old Dave teases.

“Watch it,” Bro says, and it’s that hard tone you’d know anywhere. It’s bizarre, when it’s not directed at you. “And I’m babysittin’.”

“Fuck you, I’m not a baby,” you say.

“Yeah you are,” they say together, and you lift a hand to give the bird in their vague direction.

 Dave laughs, and you hear his footsteps as he walks away, so quiet you have to strain to listen.

“Hey,” Bro says again, when he’s gone. You hum acknowledgment, but don’t lift your head. “Don’t - next time you leave the house, you need to tell somebody.”

You blank for a minute, so fucking blindsided you almost can’t process what he said, whole body tense, still. “Uh. Are you - are you being serious?”

“Can this not be -” He sighs, sounds irritated, but no more than usual. “I didn’t say it had to be me. Do we have to do this right now?”

“Dude, I don’t know,” you laugh, sleepy and confused. “You’re the one who brought it up, like a fuckin’ disgruntled dad waitin’ by the lamp for the exact right moment to gotcha me.”

“Dave,” he says, and you can practically hear him pinch the bridge of his nose. “Will you just - please.”

You try to remember, desperately, if you’ve ever hear him say that before.

"Okay," you say, dumbly, and you jerk when his hand awkwardly pats your leg. 

"A'ight. Cool."

"Cool," you repeat, but you're hard snoozing now, and you can't really get your eyes to stay open.

You do startle when a hand touches your hair, and a familiar set of calluses brush cross your cheekbone.

"Sorry," Dirk murmurs as he lifts you head, puts it in his lap to make room. "Didn't mean to wake up "

"M'not sleeping" you mumble, even though our totally are.

"Okay," he says patiently. "Whatever you say, Dave."

You don't actually get to see Dave, pass the fuck out before he gets out there, but you are sure you can hear his faint laughter, and the thought of all of you, Striders, together, is ridiculous enough that you almost manage a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 45 who the FUCK authorized this kind of behavior  
> to those of you still out here i am??? blown away by your support each chapter and every week and I cannot believe anyone is still reading this \o/ big sorry but thank you so so much it means a lot!


	46. rail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Bro Strider is a recalcitrant douche, and alpha Dave discovers that some things are much worse than they seem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Sorry I took a lil break to write some other stuff and! Anyway this chapter didn't want to be written but who cares here it is!  
> Warnings for Bro being Bro, lots'o swearing, and frank discussion of prescription drugs!

You are less than a week away from Thanksgiving and you are starting to think, yeah, okay, there’s something seriously fucking wrong with Bro.

Not in general, though that’s fair but.

Lately.

It started about five days into your staycation, and now, on day fucking seven, he’s shuffling around like a fucking zombie.

He’s not interested in playing along with you anymore, waves you away when you try to ask if he needs help, watching him stagger to stand, watching him wander or flash away clumsily, and he’s even started hiding from you when you seek him out.

You’d be miffed if you weren’t so worried.

And you wouldn’t be so worried if you didn’t share a room with the guy, if you weren’t used to pressing into his space almost every minute of every day. The new routine is off-kilter and bizarre, and you seriously don’t appreciate the distance he’s putting between you, as if you’ll pretend and accept that this is the new normal.

Which is kind of hard, because you may be a difficult dude to get along with at times, and maybe kind of dense, from time to time, but you ain’t blind.

See, Bro has woken up drenched in sweat for the past two days.

You don’t mean to notice, of course, and it’s rare that you can catch him sleeping at all, but you notice, truly, because it’s startled you from sleep two days in a row, when he sits up with a rattling gasp, like he can’t breathe, like he’s choking on -

You don’t know.

Both of you were impaled, weren’t you?

Jesus Christ.

The second time he actually catches your eye, and you see discomfort, there. Shame, when he finally looks away. “Sorry,” he says, spits the word with a mechanical tone you don’t know how to take. Everything in his face is challenge, warning. He doesn’t want you to ask.

You don’t consider yourself to be curious to the point of malicious, but you do watch Bro grab the back of his shirt and rip it off over his head, do pick your way over the scars on his torso with a critical eye. A couple familiar lines you share, thin and uninteresting, splattered along his ribs, over his chest. A line that curves up his bicep towards his shoulder, bright white, noticeable even if a little faded. You’re not trying to stare, but how can you look away when you know so fucking little about this guy that you,

You don’t know.

You just have this curiosity that draws you to him, questions that burn the edges of your mind. Who is he, where did he come from (where did he go, haha, Cotton-Eyed Joe reference hello it’s been a long time). The two of you have the same vague starting point, but there are moments where you feel oceans (worlds, really) apart.

“Stop staring at me,” is all he says as he drags himself up to his feet, halfway across the room before you can even think to ask where he’s going.

Well.

Okay.

 _Fine_.

“Are you fucking sick?” you ask him, straight out, after he comes back from the shower. You’re sick of playing around and honestly at this point, you’re kind of afraid.

He gives you an odd look from his sleeping bag, furrowed brow, skin pale, and you are certain you’re not imagining the faint tremble running the course of his body. “I don’t get sick,” is all Bro says, turning away, dragging a clean shirt over his head.

“Bullshit, you’re a mess,” you huff, and then, despite thinking better of it, you hop off the bed and drop down beside him, curl your hand around his elbow when he flinches away; you try not to flashstep around too much - you’ve spooked everyone in the house at least once - but honestly when it comes to Bro, you wouldn’t put it past him to run the fuck away.

Bro’s mouth curls down and you feel his arm muscles shift, wound tight and ready to strike.

“Don’t hit me,” you murmur, like that will stop him, and then you reach out with your free hand and put it on his forehead.

His eyes drop closed behind his frames and you barely notice because  _Christ_ -

“You’re burning up.”

“What is this, a Hallmark movie?” he scoffs, and then he does push you away, hand on your shoulder, thumb pressed against your collarbone in warning. “Get the fuck out of my face.”

“I’m totally telling your Roxy,” you say, already pulling out your phone and booting up Pesterchum.

“Don’t,” he mumbles, but he doesn’t peel your hand away either, so you sit hunched beside him while you talk to, uh, “Mom.”

“You don’t get to say don't,” you scold. You’d double check your forehead against his, but you don’t think he’d hold still for that, and it’d be embarrassing, besides.

TG: hey  
TG: sorry if this is weird  
TG: actually not that sorry because it is weird and theres nothing i can do about that because just like always it involves bro and we all know when it involves bro shits about to get super weird

You haven’t really talked much to his Roxy, because between the four of your adults, three of you have actual jobs that can’t take a vacation; you are trying your damndest to get out of that Christmas premiere. Your agent isn’t really taking it very well.

You’ll figure it out.

TG: Oh shit what now!!!  
TG: haha hey  
TG: Hello Dave! :) I believe this is my first time hearing from you!  
TG: I cant say Im particularly pleased with the circumstances  
TG: no and you shouldnt be  
TG: its your oaf of a dirk he sucks  
TG: Yeah lol  
TG: But I kinda love him anyway dont tell  
TG: wouldnt dream  
TG: anyway pretty sure the dudes got a gnarly fever  
TG: like i did the whole matronly hand to forehead shtick and everything i was hells of maternal but uh  
TG: gonna be honest i dont really know what im doing so  
TG: sos i guess  
TG: Oh fuck ok shit just like  
TG: Give me a minute!!!  
TG: haha take your time but i cant promise he wont run

You glance up at him. He’s giving you a dirty look, and you offer a weak grin.

TG: ok taking that back hes pissed please hurry i dont have much time  
TG: God what is it with you Striders!!! So dramatic!!

“Okay, she’s on her way,” you tell him, pocketing it again. “Bet she’s got a thermometer and everything. Christ, dude were just not gonna tell anyone?”

His eyes narrow. “Obviously.”

“That’s not a good answer.”

He shrugs. “Never said it would be.”

You scoff. “You’re impossible.”

Bro smiles, but it’s thin, a little dry. He looks tired. “That’s my job.”

You sigh, tip your head to the ceiling. Your kingdom for a communicative family member. “You know you’re sleeping in the bed tonight, right? None of this floor shit. You ain’t recoverin’ any health all curled up on the drafty hardwood like some kind of orphan.”

Bro finally shifts away, rolls you off him in a movement so fluid you don’t even wobble until you notice you’ve lost the support. “Fuck no. I like the floor. S’my new bed and I’m keepin’ it that way.”

“The fuck you are. This is ridiculous.” You reach out to touch, hesitate, think better of it. “I will pick you up if I have to. Straight up suplex you into the damn bed.”

“You can’t even pick up Dave.”

“You know -” And oh wait, actually. “Hey are you all sick and fucked up because you went outside without a coat on the other day?”

Bro raises a single eyebrow, drags a hand back through his still damp hair. He looks a little like you, with his hair hanging all over the place. It’s kind of bizarre. “That only happens in cartoons and movies.”

“Fuck you, it’s really though and you know it.” You flick him on the arm. “I’m the Hollywood expert here, and one hunny percent, can confirm, it’s so legit.”

“The only legit thing about you is that you’re full of shit,” Bro says, tucking a leg up under himself. He seems alright, sitting down, and other than a flush across his face, he seems... okay, maybe.

You don’t buy it.

“If I was sick,” he starts.

“You are -”

“If I _was_ , I wouldn’t need you to take care of me.”

You chomp too hard on the inside of your lip. That shouldn’t hurt your feelings. “Bullshit, who else can handle your stubborn stupid ass nonsense?”

“Rox does just fine,” he says, and you swear you see him smile. “And I like her better.”

“You’re a rude ass bitch,” you say instead of “Fuck you.”

“Yeah, and I bet you just love that, don’t you,” he drawls.

Well.

Honestly you don’t hate it. You do think he’s funny and while he’s definitely disconcerting in probably some of the worst possible ways, you find you are still drawn to hover around him.

You’re like some kind of empty nester, projecting uselessly onto a man who is three years younger and a whole lot more fucked up and it’s horribly, terribly embarrassing.

“Let me take care of you,” you huff.

“No,” he says.

“Let me pretend to take care of you.”

“FUCK no.”

You press your lips together, don’t pout. “A’ight, I can see that you’re literally going to do this like a toddler throwing a tantrum on the floor of the Walmart, but Rox is about five seconds from bursting in here and I reckon it’ll be in your best interest to get on that fucking bed before she lifts you prima-ballerina style.”

He doesn’t like that, you can see, but after a moment of silence he concedes, rising to his feet slowly, almost stumbling. You catch him on automatic, fingers skimming the line of a scar that runs down his wrist.

“Hey,” you murmur, soft. Gentle. “Watch it, okay?”

“Fuck off,” he mutters, shrugging you off and dropping backwards onto the mattress. 

You frown, open your mouth to speak, to rebuke him because hey, you’re being  _nice_ here - but then Roxy kicks the door down.

Her eyes are wild, expression stuck somewhere between stress and irritation, and it’s so out of place with the rest of her image, hair smoothed into perfect curls, lab coat crisp and white. She’s an oddity, this Lalonde. You kinda like her, though.

She takes one look at Bro and drops her shoulders in a sigh. “You are impossible,” she scolds, heels clicking as she crosses the room.

He gives a weak smile. “That’s my brand.”

It’s almost unfair, how he caves for her, how quickly he turns a one-eighty, how easily she lectures him into submission, and how you stand there, flexing your hands and feeling useless.

“You can’t possibly expect me to believe you’re fine when you look like shit,” Roxy says to him, voice sharp and a little mean.

“I always look like shit,” he snorts

She smacks him. “No you don’t. Put this in your mouth.”

“Fuck you.”

“Absolutely,” she sneers, practically shoving it down his throat. “After we take your temperature.

“Don’t be gross,” he says, but he doesn’t protest further, holds it steady. “A fever ain’t anything to fuss about and you know it.”

“Normal people worry when someone gets sick, Dirk,” Roxy says, flicks him on the nose.

He scowls but doesn’t speak, and you come back to sit beside him gingerly,just close enough to the edge that you can make a quick get away if necessary.

You aren’t that worried about getting sick, because you’ve never really been the type, and more than anything you’re concerned at the way the skin against your own arm almost burns on contact.

When the thermometer beeps he spits it out, but you grab it, lightning quick, and hand it to Mom without looking.

Uh.

Not Mom.

Roxy.

She beams at you, but you focus on Bro’s scowl, because if anyone’s going to hit you, it’ll be him.

Roxy clucks her tongue, obviously displeased, and reaches out a hand, puts it to his brow again. “Are you going to say ‘I’m fine’ again or are you going to lay down in this bed?”

Bro makes a displeased sound in the back of his throat and then turns a fraction to look at you.

You shrug. “Told you, man. W--”

“Warned me, dog, yeah, I bet,” he mutters, and then he wipes a hand down his face. “I’m not dying. Can y’all please hop off my dick? Not that I ain’t sure you’re enjoying the ride, but I do have work to do. Offense meant, but I actually don’t get paid by anybody to sit around doin’ nothin’ all day.”

“That’s fucking rude as shit,” you say before you can stop yourself. “I’m the busiest motherfucker in this goddamn house next to Rose and we all know it. You try doing your LA-based job from the recesses of goddamn Nowhere, New York and tell me how that goes for you. Oh you can’t? Exactly, because I’m the only one here who is literally contracted to show up and parade in full dress for other people’s amusement. No need to send in the clowns, I’m already here.”

“As if you don’t love that,” Bro mumbles, and then he folds like a wet paper towel, flops sideways on the bed without bothering to pull the blankets back.

“Can I at least have my pillow?” you ask. His shades are gonna poke a hole in the case, you just know it.”

“Y’know what?” he drawls, curling a defensive arm around it. “No.”

Yeah, you should have expected that, huh.

“You’re a dick,” you say.

“You’re both dicks,” Roxy huffs. “And unlike both of you, I do actually have work to do. Dave, be a doll and look after him for me, will you? And let me know if you need any help. I know how he can be.”

Bro flips her off, and she scrunches up her nose at him.

“Exactly. Take a nap, you over-sized drama queen.” And then with the click clack stomp of her heels, she’s gone.

You watch her go, wait until the door is closed before you turn to Bro and speak. “Dude, she totally bosses you around, huh.”

“Mm,” he says, rolls his head to the side. “Maybe.”

You reach out, touch the edge of his shades. Askance, permission required. When he doesn’t move but doesn’t flinch away, you pull them off, find his eyes already closed. If he wants to argue with you, he’s certainly not doing it now, and you fold up the ears, lean over to tuck them under the pillow.

“You want me to leave you alone?” you ask, voice soft.

He snorts. “I always want to be left alone.” You roll your eyes. You kind of figured. “But you can -” He clamps his mouth shut.

“Okay,” you murmur, push yourself to your feet. “Think I’m still young enough to work from the floor, anyway.”

“Be worried if you weren’t,” he says, smug as you ease yourself down with a groan.

“Shut up, my back just ain’t used to it, okay. I’ve seen you, old man, I know y’ain’t better than me.”

“Oh, I’m sure the Hollywood Hills are so hard on your knees.”

“Hey, I did grow up in Texas, y’know, same as you.”

“Dave,” he says, and his voice is better, a little cold. “Y’ain’t nothin’ like me.”

And you don’t know what to say to that, because you don’t want to argue. “Go to sleep,” you tell him instead. “I’ll be here. When you wake up.”

“I bet you will,” he mutters, but he doesn’t move much further, and you sit on the floor, feel the whisper of years past on the hardwood, and think about what he could possibly mean.

 

The kids do not react well to the idea of their guardian being sick.

“No fucking way,” Dave says, defensive, stubborn in a way you don’t remember being. He’s oddly avoidant of you, since your talk just mere days ago.

“Yes fucking way,” you say, hands on your hips as you stand in front of the door. “And since he’s being kind of a piece of shit about it, you ain’t comin’ in. Don’t want those cooties spreading and infecting me. Scram.”

He opens his mouth, closes it. There’s defiance there, and you like that in a kid, the way he doesn’t back down.

It’s also super fucking annoying.

“Dave,” Dirk murmurs, beside him, and he touches his arm in a way so carefully hesitant you’re almost surprised he and Bro are sort of the same person. He looks at you, raises his eyebrows.

All you can do is shrug. Dude’s still sleeping. You were just as surprised as anyone. “I can tell him to pester you when he wakes up. S’all I can do. Dude’s been sleeping for the past twelve hours. I ain’t waking him up.”

“Probably not the best idea,” Dave grumbles, wipes a hand down his face. “Okay, well - could you just tell him I - whatever. Fine.” And he stomps off.

You flounder, can’t think of anything to say, don’t want to chase after him. “Sorry,” you say to Dirk.

He offers a weak smile and a shrug. “It’s okay. Things are still a little, uh. Rocky, between them. Is he really...?”

You know these kids have been through hell with this motherfucker, at least as far as having seizures and like, dealing with a dude who came back from the dead, but. You don’t really know how to comfort, not anymore. Your experience with kids when you died was, in a word, non-existent.

“He hasn’t started puking yet,” you confess. “But dude’s got a pretty gnarly fever. I’m keepin’ an eye on him. When he wakes up I’ll see if he’s up for a couch camp out.” You’ve only ever seen people do that in movies, don’t have a great frame of reference for the activity, but it always sounded nice to you, as a kid.

Dirk smiles again, but it doesn’t reach the rest of his expression, tension still obvious on his brow, and he only says, “Alright. Well, I - Okay.” You think he’ll say something else, but then he doesn’t, just turns on heel and walks away.

Your heart aches, just a tick.

You want so desperately for this kid to love you.

You just don’t know where to start.

Your phone buzzes in your pocket and since you aren’t expecting any calls, you know exactly who it’ll be.

TT: I’m surprised you would tell him no.  
TT: Of all people in this house, aside from Dave and Rose’s mother, Dirk might be the only other person Bro would be willing to listen to.  
TG: you really think so  
TT: To an extent.  
TT: He’s quite well known now, for being reticent, and with that stick shoved so far up his ass, it can be hard to tell if he even knows the word “yes” anymore, but.  
TT: I do have something approaching on faith when it comes to certain aspects of their relationship that I have observed firsthand.  
TT: It is just part of being a Dirk, bro.  
TT: Built into the system, as it were.  
TG: that doesnt actually make me feel better  
TT: No, I suppose it wouldn’t. I will say I do not think allowing him to hurt your feelings should be on your list of priorities.  
TT: Even though I know you’re not actually going to listen to me.  
TG i mean i appreciate the heads up its just  
TG: idk im kinda used to it now i know how he can be  
TG: as long as i cut him off at the pass it usually works out just fine  
TG: sides if it were me id wanna chill with my kids if i was feeling sick  
TG: watching movies is fun  
TT: I don’t know if you and he have the same idea of fun.  
TG: well tough shit  
TG: itll be good for him to get up and see that there are people who care about him  
TT: If you insist.  
TG: i do

When you walk back in, Bro is bent over in half on the edge of the bed, panting and dry heaving, and you scramble to get him a garbage bin before he ruins the hardwood.

Maybe you’re being a little too optimistic.

“Can you please stop trying to die?” you ask after ten minutes when the only thing he’s managed to spit up is a tiny bit of blood. He doesn’t shrug your hand off your back where you’ve been rubbing it absently, the picture of a proper television mother, but he doesn’t seem like he’s going to answer, either. “Like, no offense but I’m actually starting to freak out.”

“What’s the matter?” he drawls, puts his head on the edge of the small bin he’s cradling. “Never been sick before?”

“I have,” you say slowly, frowning. “But not - not in a long time.”

“No disease under the seaweed queen?”

“Just not very many humans left to catch them, I reckon,” you say, voice rough, a little strained.

He grunts, retches into the bucket again, and you sit there quietly with your hand between his shoulder blades.

 

You do convince him to come downstairs, later that evening, when you tell him the Daves are worried, that Dirk is worried, and he collapses on the long side of the couch, nearly manages to make Orange Juice (you separate him neatly from the other little Dave in your head, you’re a real go-getter) scream in terror.

“Jesus, Bro,” he says, poking his brother in the shoulder. “You look like shit.”

“I feel like shit,” he croaks, and you’re almost surprised. You haven’t heard anything but “I’m fine, leave me alone” for almost four hours. Then he proceeds to roll his face into his arm and falls back asleep.

You almost laugh, would if it wasn’t so pathetic. You grab dinner from little Roxy over the back of the island counter and then settle in by Bro’s feet, lift his legs to get yourself comfortable. He doesn’t complain, and you give him a solid pat.

Orange Juice smiles a little bit, and you see the other Dave (Apple Juice, obviously) follow lead.

“Did he get sick when you were a kid?” you ask, though you know you’re walking a fine line with both of them.

He shrugs. “Not really. When I was younger he just felt like a weird robot. I don’t know if I ever remember even seeing him sleeping more than once.”

That’s. Sad. What he said is sad.

“But we did get sick once,” OJ says, looking at AJ to confirm. “When we were nine, still in elementary. He had to pick me up from school and drove to the CVS to grab whatever the fuck he deemed acceptable for sick kids, which honestly? Probably not the best idea.”

AJ smiles, a shitty little grin. “We puked in the front seat, even though he told me to do it out the window.”

“Got Gatorade everywhere,” OJ says. “It’s still there.”

These nicknames, you decide, watching them finish their story with a sense of unease, really fucking suck.

“I don’t think he made me do anything for a week after that,” Dave (and you know what let’s just call him Dave, okay, you’ll figure it out later) says thoughtfully. “I just slept on the futon and he kept like, putting on movies and trying to feed me chicken soup.”

“From a can,” the other one says dryly. “It was like watching a gorilla try to emulate human empathy.”

“Heard that,” Bro says in deadly monotone.

Dave jumps but you just laugh, gives his ankle a squeeze. You can’t stop him from killing you, but you can help the kids at least. As if they’re not at least a little bit right. You’ve seen the dude in action. It’s pathetic. “Shut up and sleep more or I’m not putting on the Last Unicorn.”

“Fuck you, it’s a classic,” he mumbles into an arm, eyes still closed.

“It’s depressing,” Dave admits.

“It’s a powerful statement,” Bro says, somewhat defensively.

“I like it,” Dirk offers quietly.

“Okay, okay,” you sigh, dragging up Rose and Roxy’s DVR. “They’ve gotta have it somewhere in here. Worst case we watch fuckin’ Shrek again.”

“Better,” Bro grumbles.

They do not, in fact, have the Last Unicorn and you do, in fact, watch Shrek again, and it’s a pretty nice way to spend a family evening, or it would be, if halfway through the movie he didn’t stumble up, soaked through the shirt, and flashstep away, bathroom door slamming closed behind him.

You’re not really used to dealing with sick people, but you feel nervous when you get up and, after a moment’s hesitation, follow after to check on him.

 

 

Your back is aching when you wake up the next morning, and you don’t complain because the dude who’s sick gets the bed, them’s the breaks, and you’ll fucking live, besides. Not like you didn’t spend enough time in the rebellion sleeping in less comfortable places.

Like Jesus, you ain’t sixty anymore, it doesn’t matter, your body’s got a few more years before it stops being able to handle a proper beatdown, but you’re still rubbing at your left hip as you limp into the living room and see Rose waiting for you in the kitchen.

She laughs at you, because of course she does. “Not sleeping well, brother dear?”

“It’s the sciatica,” you grunt, don’t thank her when she hands you coffee. “Thought you hated it when I called you sis.”

“I do,” she says, and you think she looks awful cheery, with her hair rumpled on the side, wrapped in a fluff pink bathrobe. There’s a little white cat embellished on the breast pocket. You are somehow incredulous and jealous, all at the same time.

“You, uh, you good?” you ask awkwardly. You know it’s a bit early in both of your lives for you to be falling apart, and you’re aware you’re both at the height of your insane popularity, but to see Rose look like this - well it’s kind of scary.

“Yes, Dave,” she sighs, rolling her eyes. “I am ‘good’, though I suppose it would be more correct to say I am doing _well_.” You make a face and she reaches out, lightning quick, and pinches your arm. “Is it a crime to be in a good mood around here? I may be imagining it, but I quite think the elder Dirk might be rubbing off on you.”

You wince, don’t snap at her. “Maybe a little. Sorry. It’s been kinda weird with him recently.”

She tilts her head to the side. “You shouldn’t be so soft on him.”

“I’m... not,” you say slowly. Cautious. It’s rare Rose is wrong about anything that truly matters, but you’re not sure if this is one of those things.

She simply shrugs, takes a sip of her own mug with her brows up.

You stubbornly do not ask what she means. “So sup with you, what’s the good word? What’s got the world’s first real Morticia all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed?”

“I finished my manuscript,” she says, and her eyes do, in fact, shine like starlight. “Early, even. Amazing, what a good memory and a little help will do.”

“Help,” you say.

He smile strains, but not unkindly, and it’ll always be bizarre, your sister without her makeup, cheeks dimpled, still young, still full of life. “Roxanne has been assisting me - take a break. From drinking. For at least the time being.”

Your mouth opens. Snaps shut. “That’s - hey, fuck, that’s really -” You choke up and it’s pathetic, and it’s sad, and you’re thrilled, and all you can think about is watching each other die. You wrap your arms around Rose, nose planted in her bed-mussed hair, and you tell her, “I’m proud of you.”

“Alright, alright, no need to get all mushy first thing in the morning,” she chides, squeezing you briefly before pulling you back by the shoulders. Always a bit cold, Rose. You never understood why you differed so much, in that respect. She pats your face, laughs softly when you push her hands away. “You didn’t sleep much. How is he?”

“Not so good,” you admit, run a hand back through your hair. “He spent most of the night rollin’ over, and he kept talkin’ in his sleep. Couldn’t make out a lick, but gotta say, it was mildly terrifying?”

She nods slowly, presses your cup of coffee back into your hand. “Why don’t you sit for a spell? He isn’t going anywhere. I imagine you could use a break.”

“Yeah,” you sigh, rub your eyes. You could, you really could, but you’ve still go some script work to do - like Rose, you’re already ahead, it’s insane - and you’ve got a call scheduled at four.

“I’m surprised he hid it this long,” Rose says as she curls up on the opposite end of the couch from you.

“He didn’t,” you confess, mouth pulling down. “At least not well. But he’s still pretty goddamn fast. First time I’ve been able to catch him, actually, and I didn’t think he’d actually take my Mom threat seriously, besides.”

She stares. “Mom.”

“Uh,” you say, feel your ears turn pink. “Roxy. Roxanne.”

“Yes,” she says, but the grin curling on her face is shark-like and mean-spirited. “Of course, Dave. Whatever you say.”

 

Bro seems more distracted after that, and even with Mom shoving NSAIDs down his throat, the fever never really drops, and you notice he’s started to bite his nails.

Yesterday while he was working you saw him raking his hands through his hair, thoughtless, bordering on aggravated. He’s not getting any better.

You think he might be getting worse, and you worry ceaselessly because you think it might be your fault.

“Let take your temperature again,” you beg, the day before Thanksgiving.

He looks up at you from where he’s sat in the corner of the couch, and little Rose, who is sitting at the far opposite, gives you both a suspicious look. He regards you carefully, face impassive, and then turns back to his tablet. “Nah.”

“Why the fuck not?” you ask, shoulders dropping, frustrated.

“He does have a fair point, Dad,” Rose says, and the last word sticks oddly in her throat. “Surely there’s no harm in allowing him to see if your fever’s passed. You do seem quite intent on working yourself to death, if nothing else.”

Bro just shrugs. “Just seems like a waste of time.” He adjusts his hat and you start to resent the way it hides his face.

“Not to me,” you try. “Look, literally give me two minutes, and I’ll be outta your hair.”

You see a muscle working in his jaw, can tell from the way his arms almost seem to creak as he moves that he’s wound as tight as he can go, and you feel unease, more on edge than you’d admit on a normal day.

“No,” he says again, and then suddenly he’s up, tablet abandoned, hand reaching for his back pocket as he heads towards the stairs. “Leave me the fuck alone, just this once.”

He is gone before you can stop him (but you don’t try, do you, you let him go, let him flash away in his odd limping two-step, like he can’t see the path clear enough in front of him). And you stand there behind the couch, holding a thermometer and a headache growing behind your eyes.

“That didn’t go very well,” Rose comments.

“No,” you sigh, teeth grinding together, “it did not.”

You know he’s a complicated dude, that he ain’t the easiest person to get along with, but you just keep finding yourself drawn back towards him, desperate to make friends or, or to fix him. Something. Intrigue and worry and maybe just the tiny, itty bittiest bit of bullying.

Wow you’ve gone full older brother, haven’t you?

You totally have.

You can’t really go full prankster’s gambit on him, of course, you’re terrified he’d just like, slice you through with his sword (except that you kinda know he totally wouldn’t not a coward but a man of impressive, if pantshittingly terrifying restraint).

But you can chase him.

So you do.

 

You find him on the roof, a stereotype that’s almost soothing to you now, and he’s smoking again, wearing nothing but an old, terrifyingly [photorealistic Animal sweater](https://www.blinkvero.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Muppets-Animal-Faux-Ugly-Christmas-grey.jpg) and snow boots over a faded pair of jeans that aren’t at all weather proof.

It’s cold as fuck in your thin, silk-lined jacket, and you don’t know why you didn’t wear a coat, don’t know why you didn’t bother, Christ, what are you, a moron? You’re both going to freeze if he stays up here.

At least it’s not snowing.

Yet.

He’s also pacing, walks far too close to the edge of the Lalondes’ flat roof for you to be comfortable, and you give him a moment to see you, to look away, before you speak.

“You’re not okay,” you say, and it isn’t very polite, cornering a dude in the one place he can’t run, but where the fuck else in this goddamn mcmansion can you get him alone with no immediate escape route?

Wow you really sound like you’re trying to wrangle a wild animal, huh.

Guess it’s not  _that_ far off, in a way.

“You’re right,” Bro says. He’s halfway through one cigarette already, and he’s got another tucked behind his ear. He’s been smoking a lot lately.

You keep your expression neutral, kick the door closed behind you as you approach him, slow and careful. “If you’re trying to make this into a joke it’s not working.”

He comes to a stop so close to the edge of the roof you feel your stomach clench, one hand shoved in his pocket, the other around his light, and the way he looks at you makes you feel like an inconvenience, like you’re a waste of his space, as well as his time.

You know he was not kind to Dave growing up.

You can see that now, how cruel he must feel, to someone so young.

You see bits of the self you knew before you died in there, manic, bitter, angry but for all the wrong reasons.

“I’m not,” he finally says, shrugs. “I haven’t been okay in a long time. Nothing to hide for it.”

His hands are shaking again.

The flu doesn’t make your hands shake, you know it doesn’t because you’ve had the flu, because you’ve seen Rose sick, because you’ve seen people sick. You watched him puke earlier, just after breakfast, which he ate despite (and perhaps  _to_ spite) protests not to, and you frown, because you think, just in that second, that you understand.

You’re up in his face in an instant. You know he could punch you, but he doesn’t, and you pull of his shades because there’s only one way you can really check.

He doesn’t stop you.

You turn his head a half inch to look at you, and you see his eyes, half-lidded and slow blinking, dull and glazed, and he winces even in the pale winter light.

Oh.

“You’re not taking your meds,” you say simply.

He grits his teeth and snatches his shades back. “It doesn’t matter. They don’t do anything.”

Of fucking course, shit, fuck how did you not notice before? How could you be so dense?

“Okay, not only do I totally not believe you, but that doesn’t really matter, dude.” You want to wrap a hand in his shirt, want to jerk him back from the verge before he can fall. “You’re going through withdrawal, shit.”

“The fuck I am,” he scoffs, but he turns away, and you can see how the whole of him vibrates, the thin film of sweat that’s starting to form across his skin in spite of the frigid air.

“You make think you can willpower through this,” you say, caustic, mean, “but I assure you, your body doesn’t give a fuck. You should - Christ, dude, how many AEDs are you on? This shit can GIVE you seizures if you keep it up. What the fuck were you _thinking_?”

He shrugs, and you get a very clear picture on how much of a dick this guy really is. “Wasn’t. Just didn’t care.”

Well that’s.

 _Christ_.

“That’s not o-fucking-kay with me,” you say through grit teeth. “Do you even understand how dangerous this is? Do you know what could happen? Do you really understand?”

Bro is calm as he takes a drag, and you feel your hands curl into fists.

“You’re insane,” you say.

“I know,” he says.

“I’m not gonna let you do this,” you tell him.

He shrugs. “You can’t actually stop me.”

You see him rock back on his feet, and your hand leaps forward without thinking. “Please, Christ, Dirk -”

“Don’t,” he snaps, tone acidic, a hand around your wrist before you can reach to touch, “call me that.”

“Bro, then,” you murmur, opposite hand curling over his.

He stares at you, blinks, half-speed, like he’s moving through water, and you furrow your brow, bite you lip.

“This isn’t okay,” you say.

“I know,” he says.

“You could die,” you say.

And the most fucked up part is that he lets you go, that he turns away and he says, “I know.”

“That’s not acceptable,” you push, grab him by the arm.

When he turns on you there is poison in his eyes, warning. He is telling you to let go.

You don’t.

“They don’t do anything,” he repeats.

“I dunno if I’m willing to believe that,” you say, stupid, angry. You stand up straight, square yourself, step carefully over the shame that sits in your gut. “Like dude, you’ve been taking them for months. Wouldn’t you notice an improvement?”

Bro just shrugs, and you fantasize about hitting him. “Figure shit’s just different now. Dunno why I have to think about it any deeper than that.”

“Why are you so insistent on trying to die?” you snap, know you shouldn’t.

He frowns, brow bunching together. “I’m not.”

“The fuck you’re not,” you scoff. “You spent my first week back in Texas makin’ me jump, hoping I’d lop your damn head off!”

Bro’s mouth twitches down, but he doesn’t say anything, and you know you should stop, part of your brain definitely knows you need to quit, but there’s a thrill to it, a sick little part of you deep down inside that remembers this, that remembers the look in someone’s eye when they’ve decided to kill you.

And just like that, he shrugs you off, is halfway across the roof and down into the stairwell. “I don’t have to deal with this shit.”

“Oh?” you laugh, balls of steel today, apparently. You follow him through the door, down the stairs, despite his speed, as if you’re not in better shape and twice as fast. “You think you’re too good to talk about your own damn problems? Think it’ll make them go away if you ignore them?”

“You don’t even know me,” he grunts, and you think he’s going to flip, you’re almost certain he will, and you hate it. Hate him.

“I know exactly what kind of person you are,” you spit, standing in the middle of the now empty foyer. You spare a minute to wonder where little Rose went, decide it doesn’t matter. “With your shitty facade and too cool to care attitude. You’re afraid to care because it hurts, because you don’t know how to handle being genuine with another goddamn human being, and you’re too wrapped up in your irony to see a way out!”

You see the change in his behavior immediately, the way his entire expression drops, ice cold and blank as a canvas in less than a second flat.

You had to get it from somewhere, you suppose.

“This ain’t a game I wanna play with you, self made man,” he says, and the hollowness of his voice is almost more unsettling.

You don’t care.

“They why the fuck’re you still here? Standin’ here like a goddamn saint? You think being cruel to yourself, punishing yourself and everyone around you for your own fucked up shit is gonna fix it?”

And you think, for a moment, that he might actually hit you.

But then he doesn’t, because after that, he doesn’t do anything at all.

He pitches sideways before you can grab him, dropping your phone and half your sylladex as you cuss so loud it bounces back off the ceiling.

His head slams into the corner of the couch and you scramble around to pull him away, feel all the blood rush to your head, feel it pounding in your ears, can feel the creak of the couch’s age beneath your fingertips, the weak remnants of a power you never had a grip on, will never have a grip on, singing through you, nothing more than emphasized helplessness as you drop to the floor beside him.

You’ve been reading about seizures, you’ve seen a couple on set and among the rebel forces, but nothing prepares you for watching your alternate universe brother twitch and shake as you prop your head up in his lap.

Your thoughts bounce around in your skull like a bad game of pong, ringing in your ears, hot and cold flooding over you all at once, making you nauseous, making your head spin, muscles tense and all the hair standing up on the back of your neck, stomach turning sour, something like bile climbing up the back of your throat, anxiety, dread, anguish because you can’t do anything, you can’t DO anything.

Rose is so suddenly beside you, your Rose, tall Rose, counting aloud, holding his hand, touching his wrist. She’s looking at her watch, then at you, like she wants to ask, to demand answers, but she can’t because she’s keeping the time.

Spittle drips down Bro’s chin and it feels like slow motion, and you hear the kids more than see them, slamming doors and feet across hardwood, and they shouldn’t be here, Jesus they shouldn’t be seeing this, but you cradles his head and try not to rock back and forth and then he’s over and he lets out a shuddering breath and you realize you’re holding yours.

“One minute, twenty seconds,” Rose announces, settling back on her heels.

“Thirty,” you correct out of habit. You’re a failed knight, of course you are, but there’s just some shit you _know_ , things you’ll never be able to shake, like how you know that Bro washed his hair this morning, that his hat is impossibly three years old, is impossibly six years old, something that teethers to and fro and burns into your fingertips.

What did you do? What the fuck did you _do_?

Rose pinches her lips together, askance, concern, but she doesn’t say anything, and then she’s on her feet, herding the kids away, and you just sit there, your ankles bending uncomfortably under your ass.

You don’t know why you incited him like that, why you poked the bear so hard (it’s so easy, it was so damn easy), why did you - you didn’t think -

Christ, Dave, you  _know_ he doesn’t have his meds, you could have -

God, he could die, couldn’t he, couldn’t he, if he

And you didn’t even notice, you didn’t look for the signs, he tried to brush you off but you didn’t listen, fuck, you’re sweating, fuck, you think you might throw up.

“Bro?”

He looks so pale, white as a sheet, shades discarded and eyes drooped and unfocused, breathing shallow, and you did this, you DID this, you should have been more careful, fuck.

Fuck.

“Bro.”

You’ve never seen him so still, and it’s unnerving, he’s barely conscious, of course he is, he just had a seizure, Jesus Christ he had a fucking seizure.

“Bro!”

You don’t realize it’s Dirk calling you until he grabs your chin and jerks your head up.

“Bro,” he says, and he’s shaking, eyes wide, open because, because his shades are missing.

Are your shades missing? Is the room too bright?

“Hey,” you mumble, put your hand over him to drag it away from your sweat-lined skin. “Are you okay?”

“Am I -” He laughs, hollow, humorless. “Jesus, are _you_?”

You have to think about it. You’re barely breathing, your heart still slamming, and you realize, belatedly, you’re not shaking from the cold. “I don’t know,” you admit. Cough. “Sorry.”

Dirk breathes a heavy sigh out his nose, closing his eyes and rubbing a hand over his face and you think, Jesus Christ how is he still a kid.

But you don’t get a scolding like you expect to, and instead he just drops to the floor in front of you, wraps his noodly arms around his knees.

You wait a minute for him to speak, but he doesn’t, so you turn your eyes to Bro, pull of his hat. You almost feel worse that he doesn’t protest, and you run your hands through his hair even though the gel sticks the strands together, even though you still feel like you might puke.

“Sorry,” Dirk says shyly, when it’s been a minute. “That you had to see that.”

You look up at him and you can see his eyes focused on the floor, on your lap, on Bro. Anywhere but you.  It’s a recurring theme with the two of you, the way he can’t seem to look at you for more than a moment, and you wonder what you did wrong. There’s shame on his face, and it strains across his shoulders.

“Hey, dude, you’re still just a kid. I think it’s more fucked up that you had to see yourself - er, alternate self? Only kinda sorta self? Have a seizure in the first place. Like goddamn.”

He shrugs. “It’s not the first time, he’s been like this since we got home.”

“You don’t - Dave didn’t say anything about them before?”

Dirk shakes his head, brow furrowed. “It’s a recent development, all things considered. It’s not... It’s not easy to talk about, and every time I explain it, it still sounds super fucked up and insane.” He looks at Bro, reaches out to wipe off his chin. “At first, I considered the possibility that they might be unrelated, and that it was just - something to do with his world, with this world, that made him go wrong. Even now, I can’t guarantee that it’s the root of the problem. He’s got a cavity in his soul.” He looks up at you and you don’t think he looks scared anymore, just factual, maybe a little sad. “I know it doesn’t make sense, and I know it seems... wrong. It’s likely that between his first death and subsequent resurrection, something went horribly wrong. HE went horribly wrong. Sburb is easy to blame, I am aware, but the likelihood of outside influence is, at this time, inadmissible.”

“I don’t really know what that means,” you offer, because it  _does_ sound insane, the whole thing, but you don’t know shit about being a god, because Dirk hasn’t really talked to you about it, and none of the kids ever seem to address it at all.

He grimaces, and you see Bro at the corners of his face, displeasure, irritation, but not at you. “Heart shit - soul shit. It’s all interconnected, like an intrinsic part of you that lives inside. The part that gets left behind when you become a ghost.”

“Ghosts are real.”

“To a point. Not important. Bro has a hole about -” Dirk’s hand curls into a fist. “This big just - punched through the middle. I don’t know what else to tell you. All I can say is, I don’t know how to fix it, and I can’t tell if it’s actually killing him.”

That’s just.

Some dark as shit he dropped on you. What the fuck. How do you reconcile that with -

Fuck.

“Does he know?” you ask.

“Yeah,” he sighs, shrugs. “He just won’t let me do anything about it.”

You laugh, pathetic, hysterical. “Big surprise there.”

“That’s just how he is,” he says wryly.

You raise an eyebrow. “Is that how you are?”

“Unfortunately, and to my great displeasure, yes.” He offers a thin smile. “It’s certainly embarrassing, and if you had asked me a year ago if I thought it a valuable trait, I would have said yes. But I can see now, the flaw in that logic. Trying to do everything by myself when my friends are right there, willing to offer their help if I just. Let them in.” Dirk covers his face with his hands. “That was hells of embarrassing. Sorry.”

“You’re not embarrassing,” you murmur, reach out and drag him close enough to bonk your heads together. “You’re just a kid. And that’s okay.”

He laughs once, coughs wetly, and he sits with you just long enough that your feet have gone completely numb, and he eventually pushes back, up to his feet, just in time for the Daves to make their reappearance.

They talk in low voices as they move towards the couch, but you don’t get to listen in because Mom chooses then to come back from the lab, drops her jaw and her keys straight to the floor, and you don’t have the chance to shift away before she’s right in your business, nose full of hairspray and cloying perfume. 

“Ohhh, Dirk! Dirk, Dirk, sweetie, oh no.”

Bro lets out a groan, an arm shooting out to prevent her from getting any closer, but she just shoves it aside, drags him up like he weighs as much as a bag of grapes.

“Uh,” you manage.

“It’s okay,” Mom says triumphantly, hulks him to his fucking feet and slings him over her shoulder. “I can take over from here, David, darling.”

“Uh,” you say again.

“Fuck you,” Bro manages, and those are words, at least so. Improvement.

“Is he going to -”

“He’ll be fine,” she assures you. Bro mutters something you’re almost certain is Spanish and she smacks him. “Don’t give me that nonsense, mister! You need to _rest_!”

It’s the last thing either of them say before she’s up the stairs and the door to your shared room has slammed shut behind her.

“She’s strong,” you manage weakly.

No one answers you, though, because the kids have collected into a pile on the couch and you’re still sitting on the floor, staring at your hands.

You don’t bother getting up, not even when your knees start to ache, and you press a hand to the wood, feel the warmth he left behind.

A hole in his soul.

What are you supposed to do about that? What does that mean?

Clearly you didn’t realize what the fuck you signed up for, trying to parent a, a,

Are they really gods?

The implication seems to be yes, yes they fucking are you are the brother/guardian/parent of a god, and where does that leave you? How do you protect someone who probably doesn’t need you anymore?

You start when Rose touches your shoulder, lift your head and -

Oh.

Not your Rose.

“Hey,” you say softly, clear your throat. “Um. Sorry. Your floor, I, uh.” You drop your eyes. Bro’s spit is starting to dry on the hardwood. “I think it’s my fault, he.”

“It’s okay,” she says, and her voice is nothing like your Rose, higher pitched, not a lick of uncertainty, same as always, but without the smoke that sits lower in your Rose’s throat. “Are you alright?” You’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes.”

“It’s only been eighteen,” you say obnoxiously, and her eyebrows raise.

“I think you will find that this trait you share with Dave is no more endearing on you than it is on him, and I hope you don’t take it to heart when I ask you to shut the fuck up and answer the question.”

You manage a rusty laugh. “Uh. Yeah, I. I’m okay. I’m fine. Fuck, I’m not the one who had a seizure, am I?”

“That doesn’t matter,” she says, and then she walks away.

You wipe a hand down your face, wonder, idly, where your Rose wandered off to.

Is it sad that you kinda want a hug?

And then there’s a glass of water shoved under your nose, and you blink.

There’s little Rose again, expression steady, blank. 

You wonder if she knows how much she looks like Bro.

“Uh,” you say. Third time’s a charm.

“You’re sweating,” she says.

“Thanks,” you say weakly, now acutely aware of how drenched your suit shirt is, take the glass. It’s good, going down, and you needed it a lot more than you realized. “Shit, thanks. I wasn’t really prepared. For that.”

“It can be startling,” she says with a wry smile and a shrug.

You lift your eyes, blink at her dumbly. “You’ve seen him like this before?”

“Yes, once. Well.” She presses her lips together. “Perhaps twice would be a better way to put it. I am not inclined to believe he will die, nor am I entirely sure he knows how.” She smiles again, but it’s weak, pinched at the corners.

You laugh. “That sounds like him.”

“Do you feel you know him well enough to make that judgment?” she asks, and it feels like a trap.

You shrug. “I think we’re more similar than people give us credit for. I can recognize that, even if I have trouble ownin’ up to my own shit when I see it in a mirror.”

“That’s... rather apt of you,” she says, and you feel like you’re being complimented.

“Uh. Thanks?”

“Yes,” she says thoughtfully. Head tilted, eyes narrowed, she looks just like her mother, and Roxy’s. “Quite. You’re welcome.”

Then she really is gone, and you flounder uselessly, unsure of what to say or do.

 

Bro is sleeping when you sneak back upstairs, or you think he is, until you close the door and realize his frame is too stiff, that his posture is all wrong, and you clear your throat, flounder for something to say.

He gets there before you, and you freeze in your tracks. Bro’s voice is groggy, stuck in his throat and cracked around the edges. “Sorry,” he says, lifts his head to squint at you. He’s not wearing his shades, still on the floor in the living room, and you find his eyes no less intimidating now than you ever have before. “That you had to see that. And shit.”

“I,” you start, lick your lips. It was your fault though, wasn’t it? It was your fault it happened in the first place. “Pretty sure I should be apologizing to _you_. Fuck, if I hadn’t provoked you -”

“You didn’t do this,” he says, drops back down so he’s facing away again. “Was my fault. My shit’s kinda fucked right now. Got a cog in the works, as it were.”

“Your soul,” you say, don’t mean to. It slips out, your curiosity mixed with panic and worry. “Dirk told me.”

He shrugs. “Figure it’s finally catching up with me.”

“But you ain’t takin’ your meds.”

“I didn’t bring ‘em.”

Your brain comes to a screeching halt. “Why the fuck _not_?”

“Didn’t know if I actually needed them or not.” He sighs, as if realizing you’re not going to leave and rolls over. “Reckon I was curious.”

You are, for lack of a better word, flabbergasted. “Withdrawal isn’t a game you can just play because you feel like it,” you say, and there’s more heat to your words than you’re comfortable with.

Bro gives you a flat look as he sits up. “I don’t play games. I was just curious.”

That’s fucked up.

This dude is fucked up.

“You’re kinda fucked in the head,” you tell him.

He snorts, but there’s nothing like a smile on his face. “You wanna go for another round and see if I can do it again?”

“No,” you snap, put your face in your hands, try not to scream. “Why are you such a raging douchebag?”

“S’fun, I guess. I’m doing it specifically to bother you right now, though, if you want an honest answer.”

You jerk up your head to give him a look and see the start of a smile, cracked at the corner of his lips. You don’t particularly appreciate it.

“Can you please just lay down and shut up again?” you ask, desperately.

“No,” he huffs, sliding onto the floor. “The bed is shit. I like the floor better.”

“Well,” you start, chomp hard on the inside of your cheek out of frustration. “Maybe so do I.”

“I ain’t sharin’ my sleeping bag, I know how Daves can be,” he warns you.

“I ain’t askin’,” you tell him, and he hums in displeasure when you drop down next to him.

But he doesn’t stop you either, shifting his shoulder away from yours. You press closer.

“You don’t get to be a turd after what you put me through,” you tell him, indignant.

Bro does actually smile then, and you think it’s maybe the first time you’ve seen him actually amused. “You’re kind of a little shit, you know that right?”

“Yeah, except for the part where I’m almost as big as you, you fucking brick shithouse.” You punch his arm. “Wait, fuck, is it -”

“I’m fine,” he says, pushes away your worrying fingers.

“You’ll be better when we go refill your prescription, you monstrous oaf,” you say, persistent.

“Stop. Dave,” he adds in warning when you touch his face. He snatches your wrist in his hand and you almost flinch for the suddenness, the edge of pain.

You can’t help the shitty grin on your face “You called me Dave.”

He’s watching you, piercing eyes, hesitation and appraisal. “Yeah. I did.”

“Can I call you Dirk?” you ask.

Bro scowls. “No.”

“Fuck you, if you get to call me Dave -”

“David.”

“Hell no -”

“D, then.” You get a flash of teeth that’s almost a grin. “For dickwad.”

“Fuck you, you’re a dickwad,” you huff, but you don’t actually say no. D is. Okay actually it’s terrible. You hate it. But if he gets to be Bro, you guess you can’t really stop him, can you? “Anything’s better than David.”

“Ain’t your name?” he asks, an air of smugness.

“Is Dietrich yours?”

He raises an eyebrow. “In certain circles.”

“Well.” That didn’t work. “Okay, but -”

“David.”

“D.”

“D.”

You smile at him, more genuine than you usually like, and can’t help the little thrill when you see him smile back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jazz hands. Finally an excuse to give D a name, huh!  
> Anyway sorry for the kinda bummer chapter but it has to happen in order for something else to roll along after it!


	47. sequence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave makes a confession. So does Bro. We have waited an awful long time for this moment, haven't we?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter ALSO has a gore warning!  
> man what is up with me lately!  
> t. warnings for flashbacks, decapitation, graphic depictions of like, a dude dyin' and stuff, blood, vomiting, discussions of child abuse, me mocking the epilogue, and bro strider

TG: so ive been thinking  
TG: wow not a good sign  
TG: shut the fuck up im gearing up for a monologue  
TG: dude you cant monologue at someone else thats not a monologue  
TG: what are you rose shut up its a monologue  
TG: ok i think that seriously negates how were both individual people but fine  
TG: ok fuck whatever its not a monologue  
TG: no no dont let me stop you  
TG: really get in there show me whats what  
TG: maybe i can learn a thing or two since obviously im the one who knows jack shit about anything  
TG: god you can be such a dick  
TG: wow what a surprise so can you  
TG: wonder where we get that from  
TG: yeah  
TG: have you seen him yet  
TG: nah  
TG: stairs and like  
TG: idk it just feels wear i dont want him to think im hovering  
TG: hovering is pretty much all you do  
TG: yeah i  
TG: i know  
TG: why are you asking me anyway youre the guy who could fly  
TG: technically you could too i dont think that arguments getting us anywhere  
TG: sides fuck you if you think im gonna be the first one to test whether or not thats still a thing  
TG: yeah i guess not  
TG: have you tried just asking dirk to check on him hes right there isnt he  
TG: haha yeah hes reading over my shoulder  
TG: he says hi  
TG: you know its kinda ableist that you two wont use your perfectly good legs to just come down here and see me since yknow  
TG: i cant return the favor  
TG: um  
TG: im being a dick again  
TG: obviously  
TG: well too late you hurt dirks feelings  
TG: made him cry and everything seriously its so sad i cant believe you woudldo oalfe  
TG: Actually no you fuckin’ didn’t, since as previously mentioned, I can see right over his shoulder and, in fact, am reading this right now.  
TG: oh hey dude  
TG: Sup.  
TG: not much obviously  
TG: you should get your dave checked out though hes acting like a bitch  
TG: can you talk some fucking sense into him about this its driving me bananas  
TG: First of all he is not “my” Dave, you are both Dave, and therefore equally qualify for the title.  
TG: Second of all, you two are aware that it is extremely unnatural that you can pester each other at all, right?  
TG: i mean not really you and ar have the same handle  
TG: Hal does not possess a body.  
TG: yet  
TG: well i aint changing i was here first  
TG: i have chronologically literally been using this handle longer than you  
TG: yeah and im the red dave so i cant change dude its a brand  
TG: dude  
TG: ok im gonna be real with you i dont really give a shit  
TG: yeah me neither haha its worked this long   
TG: yeah i know right  
TG: do you just want to come down here and talk to me or are seriously gonna do this over text  
TG: no i guess i can  
TG: im not bringing dirk though hell just go full spiral in the face of our fucked up turmoil  
TG: No the fuck I will not.  
TG: haha wow you two are so lame  
TG: im like  
TG: troll embarrassed right now  
TG: im gonna hop out of this clown car before shit crashes straight into a bus full of horseshit  
TG: anyway see you in a bit  
TG: I’ll pass along the sentiment, though I will say, DS,  
TG: I do not think he’ll appreciate it.  
TG: no i know but hes me so  
TG: well live  
TG: later dude  
TG: Yeah. Later.

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] \--

Dirk drops your phone on your face and gives you a look that’s two parts embarrassment, three parts long-suffering, and you grin.

“Sorry, dude. Looks like we’re being kin assigned, too late to go back now.”

He raises an eyebrow at you. It’s a very specific to Rose technique that you aren’t impressed they share, but the intent of it all is, you admit (begrudgingly), impressive. “Do you even really understand what Roxy means when she says that?”

“I assume I will, one day, when the meme gods deem it appropriate.” You push yourself up, untangle him from your cape. “Gotta say though, I don’t think Karkat would appreciate us appropriating his culture for the el oh els.”

“Haven’t he and John already had that debate a million times?”

You smile fondly and ignore the little pang. “Actually it was Jade, mostly, and he kinda deserved it at that point.” You were all shitty little middle schoolers. Doesn’t mean you miss him any less. Dirk touches your hand, and you push him off the bed. “A’ight, I gotta bounce for a Dave meeting, about Dirks but not  _for_  Dirks.”

He sits on the floor, shades askew, staring at you for an extremely long moment, and you fight a wince. Neither of you really slept last night, and he’s bad enough on his own, but every time Bro has a seizure, you think it digs into him just a little bit more. The circles under his eyes are bruising and you press your lips together in a thin line as you struggle for something good to say.

“You should nap.” There. That’s nice and normal. “I’ll be back in like, twenty minutes tops.”

“It’s cute that you think I can physically nap at all,” he says, adjusting his shades back into place. Kinda late for him to save face, especially in front of you, but fuck if he can’t try.

“Well have you tried?” you ask.

Dirk scrunches up his nose in a way that might be cute on literally anybody else and rolls to his feet. “Once,” he says thoughtfully, dropping to sit on the edge of the bed, just far enough to be out of reach. Won’t be shoving him back off onto the floor any time soon. “Though theoretically it does not count because my dreamself was active. Overactive, really.”

You don’t really like the implications of that. You kinda adore this guy but to be honest, he says a lot of super unsettling shit and sometimes you find yourself just. Completely unwilling (unable, maybe) to ask.

“Well can you try?” you say weakly. You get up and stretch, raise your arms over your head and roll your neck til it pops, don’t bother changing for Dave. He doesn’t actually give a shit and quite frankly it’d be kind of weird and off-brand for you if you weren’t in your normal gear.

Dirk allows you to see him grimace and you wonder if you’ve overstepped your boundaries, if you’ve demanded an impossible task of him. You know how hard it can be for him, a struggle he’s still fighting against, even though both of you are doing better, discussing nightmares and shit relating to them. “I can certainly give it a shot,” he offers, with a vague hand gesture. “If you really want me to.”

You reach out and smoosh your hand into his unstyled hair, delight in the way it feels like yours, maybe a little coarser. “I do,” you say. “Don’t force yourself, though. That’s fucked up.”

His smile is plasticine bullshit, but you two sit there for a beat, one then two, like a clock, like a heart, and you absolutely do not, even with his neck bared, think about cutting off his head.

Okay so maybe you still do a little.

But you’re trying not to.

It’s one of those things, y’know, when his expression smooths out, when he looks at you at just the right angle, and all you can think about is holding it in your hands, the weight of it, how heavy someone’s body is once they’ve died, boneless and malleable and,

Terrifying.

What would you have even done if he  _had_ actually died? Like forever died. Would you have had to bury the fucker? Bury a dude you just met? Slap his meat in a coffin and, like, do you bury the head with the body? Or separate? There’s some kind of bad luck bullshit going on in there, right? That makes sense.

Or not because that’s fucking insane, what are you  _talking_ about???

Dirk’s hand on yours, rough fingertips along your knuckles, and you try not to jump a foot in the air. “Sorry,” he says awkwardly, and you look down at him, see his eyes over his shades. His mouth purses and you wonder if you look like a fucking moron, standing before him with your hand still in his hair.

“No, dude, what,” you laugh, pull yourself away like the awkward mess you are. “I just pulled a serious fucking idle animation on you, I should be the one gettin’ on my knees and beggin’ forgiveness, all confessin’ my final sins and shit.”

He gives you a wry smile. “Don’t think madame guillotine is gunnin’ for you quite yet, bro.”

You give him your best warning look through your shades, but Dirk is an impenetrable wall when it suits him, and you find yourself frustrated at your inability to properly shut him down. “Can we please take a moment to like, acknowledge that when you talk like that I am beyond terrified of the idea that one day I’ll kill you and somehow you’ll make it into a Heroic death?”

“It’d be Just, if anything,” he says, and he’s actually smiling now, which is super fucking mean because you are so suddenly riddled with a kind of anxiety you don’t know how to shake.

“I’m leaving,” you tell him, turning heel and walking towards the door. “Take a fucking nap.”

“Yeah,” he says softly, and you grind your teeth together where he can’t see.

Things between you can still be a little...

Okay it’s still hard and you hate it, and you shouldn’t leave him there, worrying that he fucked up, even if he kinda did, and even if he’s not actually apologizing, so you hesitate, flounder, and eventually, bolt.

You’ll deal with it, you will, just.

Later.

You take a second to scream into your hands, just outside the door, and then flashstep downstairs. How fucking embarrassing, version 4.20, and you’re so busy kicking yourself mentally you almost crash straight into Zazzerpan.

“Oops,” you say to the giant wizard who definitely doesn’t have feelings, give him a gentle pat on the leg. “Sorry, big guy. Didn’t see you there. I know that’s hard to believe, cuz you’re like, twenty feet tall or whatever, but sometimes a dude just isn’t looking where he’s goin’. That’s on me. I’ll totally take the fall for that.”

“Wow.”

You definitely jump that time, and shout “FUCK” so loud it spits a half-empty bottle of apple juice all the way across the room. Turning on your heel, you see Rose first, all wrapped up in her blanket, and then the top of Roxy’s head where it’s plopped straight down on her shoulder.

You’re totally messing up Lalonde hour, aren’t you?

“Dude, Rose, what the fuck, scare a guy half to death why don’t you, all popping out of nowhere and makin’ me lose a perfectly good AJ.” You press a hand over your heart, ignore the fact that it is, in fact, pounding. “Do I look like anything less than a delicate flower maiden? You could have given me a goddamn heart attack.”

“Doubtful,” she scoffs cheerfully, rolling her eyes. “You’re the one who smashed face first into Zazzerpan. Did you even consider his feelings, Dave? Of course you didn’t. How utterly cold of you.” She pulls out her phone, careful not to wake Roxy, and starts typing rapidly.

“What are you doing,” you say, feel suspicious, maybe a little uneasy. There’s a smile on Rose’s face that you have known to cause trouble in the past, specifically and related to your bro.

You are not a fan of that slow smile.

“Texting Dirk,” she says innocently.

Roxy lets out a wild snort.

Neither of you laugh.

“Can you,” you say, hands flexing, “not do that? Maybe?”

“Well,” she says, in that same condescending cheer, “I could, if you truly needed me to. However, given that you came down here at light speed and don’t seem overly upset, I can only assume something happened with him.” Rose looks up at you patiently. “He is my friend as well, you know.”

You feel a frown curl down at the corner of your mouth and it is extremely uncomfortable for you. “You tryin’ to imply I hurt his feelings?”

“Well, you aren’t still muttering to yourself in the corner, so it couldn’t have been your brother, and Roxy is right here.” She jiggles her shoulder. Roxy snuggles closer, and Rose smiles. “Options are limited. Also, I heard the door slam.”

You struggle against the urge to feel defensive. “What if he’s the one who hurt  _my_ feefees?”

She smiles, really smiles, cheek dimpling. “If he had, indeed, hurt your ‘feefees’, I doubt he would tell me. You’re lucky anyhow.” She waggles her phone at you. “He isn’t answering.”

You swallow, shake your hands to dislodge some of the tension you built up like some kinda superficial teenager in a Disney original. “You, he uh. Was gonna take a nap.”

Roxy lets out an approving snort.

“I agree,” Rose says dryly, adjusting so that Roxy tips at a more comfortable angle before looking back over the couch at you. “Does he even know how to nap? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him sleep in the first place.”

“Jury’s still out on that one,” you shrug. “I have some dubiously taken pics though, if you’re curious.” You offer a smile, but it fits bitter on your mouth.

Rose arches a single, elegant brow. “I doubt you truly need the answer to that question.”

“Nah, didn’t think so. Well you’re gonna have to wait, either way, cuz I kinda have a meeting with Dave I’m supposed to attend right now. No Roses allowed,” you add when she opens her mouth.

“I suppose Dirks are off-limits as well?” she asks, but her tone invites a fight that you really, really don’t want to get into right now.

“Point of discussion, Rose. But not invited.”

“Yes, I imagine not,” she sighs, turning away to check on Roxy again. You’re not like, actually jealous, you don’t think. You and Rose aren’t as close as you used to be, not by a long shot, and you still kinda blame yourself for that. “Is he still holed up in his room? He didn’t answer when I knocked earlier.”

You shrug. “S’the first place I’m gonna look. He’s probably not like. In the best mood? I wouldn’t be.” You aren’t, actually, but you think people expect a little more from you. Not because you’re Dave prime or anything, but just because you don’t have any practical reason to be.

Well.

Kind of a dick?

It’s actually a little unfair, when it comes down to it, but you think that’s just how it is when you like, have spent the past however many months playing at being functional. You guess with Dirk right there to spill all your neuroses onto, you haven’t vented half as much to Rose as you used to. Before the meteor, and maybe during, for at least as long as it took her to start dating Kanaya.

Wow you’re being kind of a dick right now, aren’t you.

Guess you don’t need a reason for that, after all.

Rose is, as always, more perceptive than you wish she was. She frowns, brow furrowing and lips pressing thin. “Dave -”

“Anyway,” you, shrug again. “Dave meeting. Time for me to go. Get it, because of the time thing? Haha wow how fucked up is it that we’re literally gods and the only time I ever get to use my powers is for - well okay I wouldn’t want you to know I’m just saying. Actually I don’t know what I’m saying so I’m just gonna go. Later, Rose.”

You flash away again and there’s satisfaction in the action, something you haven’t really needed to do but kind of missed, and you didn’t even realize it. Perhaps that’s just the Strider lineage, baby.

Dave jerks upright when you slip into his room and close the door behind you, but you take a second for yourself, another one, because you’re apparently a drama queen today, keep your eyes fixed on his ceiling fan.

“Jesus Christ, dude,” he says.

“Yeah,” you sigh, chewing on your tongue. You’re being such a little fuck today. “Sorry.”

You look at him and see him giving you a once-over, face flat. He doesn’t say anything, and you think you’ve pissed him off.

Then he opens his arms.

You snort, automatic, incredulous, and walk across the room to drop against him. “Sorry,” you say again. It’s not especially comfortable, long limbs, all elbows and knees, the both of you, but you don’t really care.

“Nah,” he mumbles, shifts so you don’t fall off the bed. “S’fine.”

You let out a shaky breath, ignore the way your eyes burn at the corners. “Mom says Bro hit his head on the couch.”

You weren’t gonna bring it up.

 _Fuck_.

Okay, actually there’s no way he didn’t know you were gonna bring that up.

You hear him inhale sharply, sigh, and then he rolls, dumps you on the bed next to him. “I talked to AR about it this morning. Old Dave say he’s okay. Just a little bump.”

You kinda forget Hal is here. Or AR whatever. That’s pretty fucked up and rude of you, but it’s not like the dude has bothered messaging you much.

You realize, belatedly, if he’s anything like Dirk, he might be.

Not afraid, just.

Hesitant.

Well now you look like a prick, huh.

“Uh,” you say instead. “Cool, that’s. Thanks.”

Dave just shrugs, shakes his head. “I’m tellin’ you dude, you need to talk to him.”

“All you ever want me to do is talk to people,” you groan, flop onto your back.

“All we  _do_  is talk to people, dude,” he says, but you hear the smile in his voice. “Kind of our main tool of the trade, I think.”

“Yeah, but don’t you think that’s kinda lame? That we never actually say anything, just like. Talk in circles and hope someone listens?”

“I guess so,” he mumbles, tucks his arm under his head. He reaches out, pats your chest where the Time symbol sits, front and center. “If there was anything we could do, you would have already done it, don’t you think?”

You.

Guess that’s true.

“What about you?” you ask, move his hand away. You know you - listen you love your fucking jammies okay they’re the shit and everyone else can go to hell, fuck you, they’re awesome, but you don’t really like

 _Thinking_?

About it?

“Any inklings at all lately?”

He clucks his tongue. “Haven’t really tried, actually. I’m not a god, and last time all I did was break shit so you can see why I might be feelin’ kinda hesitant to try.”

You hu, try to remember what traveling was like before you were a god, can’t really. It feels so long ago. “I mean, we are Knights, right? Shit’s supposed to be a weapon or, something to protect? I guess? I never really understood that well.”

He shrugs.

“Aside from Bro, the last time I did it was -” You stop, bite down.

Dave’s brows lower, scrunching together. “Are you still thinking about that?

“No,” you lie, instantly. “Or, not as much as I used to.”

He stares.

“Okay, sometimes? Not all the time. That’d be crazy, right? Haha Dave killed some dude and now he’s traumatized even though said dude is totes alive right now and actually within reach if he bothers to, y’know, maybe make up after what’s not actually a fight. Or something.”

He nods slowly, but you get the idea that you’re kind of being neurotic again.

“Sorry,” you say. Third time’s a charm.

“You’re like, the one person who I think the dude is every honest with, and you’re both hopeless idiots,” he tells you. You try not to be offended.

Fail.

“Fuck you.” Dave just shrugs again. “Hey man, them’s the breaks. Just tellin’ it like I see it.”

“Yeah, well,” you say weakly. “It’s not that simple. I don’t want to keep - we can’t keep doing this thing, it’s really starting to get to me I think? Like every time something happens to Bro, I think about how it could have been Dirk, and then I think, holy shit I barely knew Dirk for like an hour and the dude trusted me to keep my aim all straight and true or whatever.”

“Yeah that is pretty fucked,” he says, voice low and soft. “I’m - sorry.”

“Well -” You grab his hand, let it fuzz against yours, and are pleased when he doesn’t turn orange or spritely at all. Good. Mean’s the fucker’s getting over his shit.

Or that’s what you want to pretend it means.

“Do you wanna...?”

It’s a big ask.

He gives you a tight-lipped smile, flops his hand like a dead fish in yours. “Don’t really have a choice, do I?”

“Dude, I’m not gonna force you? What? That’s insane, as well as supremely uncool.”

“Heh,” he says, and it may never stop being weird, seeing your own face reflected back at you, same age, freckles splattered across his cheeks like graffiti, the way you know, even through two sets of shades, that his eyes are an unnerving shade somewhere between red and orange. “I mean. Fuck, dude, I already shared my big trauma with you, I don’t see why the fuck not.”

But you can see why the fuck not.

His fingers shake against yours, pent up energy, fear, anxiety. You reckon he hasn’t flashstepped in twice as long as you. Wonder what that does to a person.

“I don’t really know how to do the uh, the thing.”

He rolls his head at you. “Just think about it, like - close your eyes and think about it like you’re rewinding film. S’easy.”

“Easy,” you grumble, but you do as you’re told, close your eyes, think about Dirk, his face, uneasy smile and sword-fucked hands, feel the dip in your stomach, like time travel, the buzz of Dave’s skin against yours. You feel your perception flicker at the corners and almost pull away.

“Relax,” he mumbles, entirely unconcerned. “If you zap up back there I swear to god I’ll fucking kill us both.”

“I’m trying not to,” you gripe, dig your heels in. The mattress bows too easy below you. Don’t travel, don’t travel, just. Think about it. Focus. Don’t shy away.

Your hand is slick in his, like sweat, like blood, and then, all too suddenly, you remember, and you don’t flinch back.

One second, you’re laying on your back, Dave’s hand in yours, and then,

you’re

_holding your sword and the exhaustion sits heavy in your shoulders, your arms, aching, almost breaking, because fuck, it’s heavy, has it always been so heavy?_

_And there’s Dirk and you see his face, the face you know so well now, teeth grit, hands shaking, body quaking, ground breaking, a bruise forming along his jaw, blood from his nose smeared across his cheek, dripping from his busted lip, losing his grip, twisted hip, and then he_

_looks at you, he looks at you and you see your brother, you see Bro, for a fraction of a second, and you see so much more, determination written in the lines of his face, the way his eyebrows tip up in the center, askance, apology, demand, and you understand, then, you UNDERSTAND._

_And it’s like your heart dropping into your stomach, it’s like losing everything you never had, that you just got back, and it ACHES as you shift your feet, ballerina soft, widen your stance like second nature, dominant foot sliding back, prepare for attack, balls of your feet, don’t rock on your heel, keep your elbows bent, don’t lock up, for fuck’s sake, Dave, this ain’t amateur hour and you ain’t a golf enthusiast, holy shit -_

_You drag your elbow back towards you as you move, fast, like lightning, a single second, a moment in time, and you_

_swing_

_feel Caledfwlch slide through his katana like butter, feel the pressure as it hits his neck, one light-nanosecond, see his eyes lift, half an inch, and maybe you’re imagining it, maybe it’s you, maybe your powers, but then it doesn’t matter because when it comes to slicing, Caledfwlch is simply the best there fucking is, and your sword runs through his neck without a pop, skin shredding on the blade, and it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter as you hit the Jacks, one-two crunch of the carapace, and there’s_

_blood, oh fuck there’s blood all over you, hot and wet, on your neck, your shoulders, and you drop your sword without thinking, stumble, don’t look, can’t look, grabbing Terezi by the arm and dragging her upright, and then fuck, fuck, there you are, twice over, of course, of course, like it doesn’t matter, feel your whole body shudder as you drop onto the final lily pad but you don’t have time, you don’t have time, and you_

_squeeze through the hole in spacetime like a cat through a crack in the door, and you’ll never forget the way his head feels, can’t, can’t, not even now, how gently you cup under his chin, how you cradle it, blood dripping between your fingers, the way his skin still gives under your hands, Christ you can feel his jaw move and you don’t puke, can’t puke, shit, fuck, how messed up would that be?_

_Someone screams when you stumble back with his head and you remember that because who the fuck wouldn’t, shit’s nasty, you’re nasty, but it doesn’t matter because his body, you need it, Dirk needs it because if Jane, if Jane can, she can do something, can’t she, she has to, she has to, and it,_

_it gives so soft under your arms, heavy, so heavy, you didn’t know a body would be so heavy, how could you, and you grab him under the arms, don’t trip, don’t stumble as you shift to pull him to your chest, as his neck lets out a weak little spray because his heart doesn’t know he’s dead and again, you go, and again, you don’t puke, and then you_

let go of Dave’s hand because he doesn’t need to see what happens next, and you don’t want him to, don’t want him to feel Jane’s powers at work, don’t want him to feel the way his blood is pulled off of your like a vacuum cleaner, the scent of menthol, the way you sniff without thinking, remember curling back into yourself as you start to taste copper, almost wretch.

Then you roll your shoulders, pull back, and look down at Dave.

Dave is you, so it’s not really a surprise when he sits up and pukes straight into your lap.

“Whelp,” you say.

“Fuck,” he says, shaking.

You reach out to- touch? Comfort? Abort the motion halfway through.

“Fuck,” he says again.

“Yeah,” you say. “Sorry.”

He opens his mouth, looks like he might puke again, stares up at you in open horror. “Have you - have you seriously been sitting on this for months?”

“I told Bro about it,” you offer helplessly.

“Jesus Christ,” he says.

“What, ain’t you ever seen a dead body before?” you try, somewhat humorlessly.

“Have you -” He touches your hand, and it’s clammy, cold sweat, slips against your own. “Have you considered trying to see if you can show him that?”

“Nah.” You don’t mention the way the heat across your shirt is kinda giving you flashbacks.

It’s also soaking through.

“I’m actually a little worried he’d get his rocks off on seeing himself die, and if he does, I literally don’t know how I would reconcile that.”

Dave laughs, hollow, wipes his mouth off on his shirt. Absolutely disgusting, the both of you.

It’s quiet for a moment.

He raises an eyebrow, expectant.

You scoff. “What, you expect  _me_ to change because you don’t like seeing yourself covered in vomit? Listen, if I just stand up -”

“Do not fucking magic wipe vomit onto my floor,” he snaps, smacking at you.

You scowl, pout, and end up yanking your overshirt off, folding it carefully so that you - pointedly - don’t get a single drop on his precious floor.

He rolls his eyes at you. “Cool, thanks, now go change your clothes.”

“We didn’t actually solve anything,” you offer softly.

“We never do,” he says, exasperated. “I’m not exactly surprised.” Dave shifts and you think, for a minute, that he’s actually going to get up. “Will you just - check on Bro for me? I kinda want to talk to Dirk now. No offense.”

You frown. “What if I don’t wanna talk to him.”

He snorts. “Well, too bad. Scram.”

You almost leave your shirt there, and curse loudly when he throws it at your head, catching it just in time to get it all over your undershirt, too.

God you hate this fucking family, and you plan his murder as you slam his door behind his ruthless laughter.

  
You don’t know if you really want to talk to him, and you ignore Rose’s voice as it follows you up the stairs (you do take the time to shake your shirts off in the bathroom, don’t look at your own reflection, because you know how fucked up and shitty it’ll be). You know Bro’s usually okay after a seizure ,or acts like it, sometimes, and.

Okay actually you know what?

He’s kind of a dick.

He’s a big irritable dickbag and he doesn’t know how to stop and you wish just fucking once that he would think about someone other than himself, but.

But you’re also super fucked up about it and you’re glad he’s alive. You don’t know what you’d do if he,

Died?

Again?

Obviously he will one day, obviously that’s just what people do but you figure it’ll be in the future, not now, not right fucking now when you need

You don’t need him, do you?

Nah.

Nah you’re.

You would have been fine, maybe, flopping around on a new Earth with your dick in your hand, trying to figure out life’s greatest mysteries with a pack of teenie bopper gods and a middle school education.

But anyway you’re here, he’s there, and Dirk is stuck somewhere in between you.

Groan, sigh.

You almost don’t notice until your feet lead you to his room, and you hesitate, just a moment, just for a second, before you get up the courage, swing the door open and find him -

Missing.

Their shared bedroom is empty and you start to panic, then spiral, then want to throw a tantrum because it threw off your plan and you don’t know how to find him.

So you go up to the roof.

It should have been the first place you checked but you didn’t really think to, what with the snow and the fact that it rotates between melting aggressively and piling up more.

It’s kinda gross.

You pull on the shoes Mom got you and clunk your way back up the stairs, careful as anything that you don’t fall.

And then you consider giving up  _again_ because he’s not here either, so you hem and haw and eventually settle for clearing a section and dropping your ass down on a clean ledge.

Rainbow Falls is beautiful this time of year, trees still clinging to leaves in reds and golds, the bigass pine trees stuck in-between.

You like the pines.

They smell good and make everything feel clean and you appreciate that a lot.

“You seriously sittin’ up here in your fucking pajamas? What the fuck is this, summer?”

You do flinch when you hear his voice, if only because you’re not entirely used to it yet.

“Fuck, shit,” you say instead, jerk your head around to frown at him. “Are you kidding me, dude?”

He stares at you, and you think it’s pretty hypocritical, wearing the [god-fucked hoodie you got him two Christmases ago](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0226/8107/products/8b15963e6abd90054a263ef631178977_2000x.jpg?v=1540056143), and what appear to be pink satin pajama pants. He notices you looking, shifts one foot, then the other. Discomfort. You don’t get that from him a lot. “What.”

“Fuck you, what,” you say, defensive. “I was lookin’ for you everywhere, couldn’t find your dumbass, how do you  _do_ that, every goddamn time, it’s like I’m cursed.”

Bro is quiet, grunts as he looks out over the valley. "Dunno. Just happens I guess."

"That's a shitty answer."

"Yeah I know." And then he cleans off another spot, flashstep fast for no reason other than convenience, and he drops down beside you.

"Uh," you say awkwardly. "Hey."

He snorts softly. "Hey yourself."

You stare at him because you can, and because he isn't looking at you, and you can see how pale he still is, how he's still a little sweaty, like he really is sick, and you feel bad, kinda stressed, that he's out here at all.

"Quit staring at me," he says around a sigh.

"Okay," you say.

You go quiet and you feel discomfited now, think about how Mom wanted to have a Thanksgiving, how you don't really remember ever having one before.

She went to the store this morning with Roxy's mom, and they're still not back. You wonder what's up with that. What they're doing.

You feel him glance at you in starts and spurts. At first you think you're imagining it, the way it creeps up on you, but then realize, as your teeth start to squeak together, that he is, and that he refuses to say anything. "Are you just going to sit up here and stare all day or you got something to say," you snap.

"I could say the same. But I won't," he adds when you glare scathingly. He turns away, pops all the knuckles on his hand in rapid succession. "Nah. Just getting some fresh air. Thought I might smoke."

"Should you be doin' that right after a seizure?"

He shrugs. "S'not right after. And I'm not a goddamn child, I can police my own habits."

"I actually don't believe you," you tell him.

"Well," he says, pulls a lighter and a half empty pack from his pocket. You think about how he never let you see him like this, as a kid. Wonder why and when that changed.

You scoff when you see the brand. "I thought you hated old Dave's cigarettes."

That earns a quizzical brow. "Old Dave?"

"Well I can't call him young Dave," you say.

"No," he muffles a laugh as he lights it, "guess you can't."

You watch how easily his hands hold it, careless. The smoke stings your nostrils. "Is that safe for you to do in front of me."

He frowns. "No, I s'pose not. I can put it out if -"

"No," you say quickly. "It's uh. It's okay. Reminds me of being little."

You don't know why you said that, but you do remember, all at once, with the burn of his Pall Malls, being maybe five years old, climbing him like a jungle gym, hiding behind him because you didn't want to go to the dentist. You remember him pulling you off by the scruff of your hoodie, how you clung, how you tried crying but it didn't get you anywhere, but how he carried you out to the car after it was over, how the smell of smoke stuck to his clothes back then, cloying, sour. Fuck, he couldn't have been more'n twenty-five. You guess that was probably pretty stressful.

He still kinda sucked, though.

Bro hums, but he doesn't put it out.

You wonder if old Dave would have been like that, in the same situation. If it had been him and Dirk, instead of you and Bro.

"You like him okay?" you blurt, childish and needy.

He arches an eyebrow over the point of his shades.

"Old Dave," you clarify.

Bro's face does something kind of weird that you don't really understand, but you don't ask because you're not sure you're brave enough to try. "Uh," he says, looks away again. "Yeah. Yeah he's alright. Kind of a pain but aren't they all."

"Hey!"

He shrugs, so you shove uim lightly. He doesn't shove back.

"You're an asshole dude," you tell him.

"Takes one to know one."

"Wow that's a burn," you say, roll your eyes "look at me. I'm so fucking burned. Call the hospital because this shit needs that silver nitrate, stat. I might never be the same man, gonna be all patchy and weird, lose all my hair and everything."

He waits til you're done. "You're lucky I didn't fucking ground you."

"Bullshit, you never even made me clean my room."

"Yeah, because I did it for you," he snorts.

"Coming into my room while I sleep to pick up hazards that will set off weird puppet traps isn't cleaning, Bro, that's just making a mess no one else can see."

"Yeah, well. Had to meet a quota, didn't I?" he says, voice a little hollow. "If I didn't, would you have ever cleaned up your dirty laundry?"

"Probably not," you mumble.

"Didn't think so," he says.

"You're not as like -" you start, raise and drop a hand uselessly. "As mad. About being here. As I thought you would be."

Bro bobs his head. "Yeah. Been a long time since I've hit the backcountry, but it ain't like anything's changed."

You take a beat. You knew that they were friends, Mom and Bro, back when they were little, or younger anyway. You think about his bashed up rolling suitcase, orange and faded at the corners, and wonder, if you touched it, would you be able to tell how old it was. That's probably cheating. What you say is, "You've been here before? To Mom's house?"

"Course." He shrugs. "Been here plenty of times, before you landed." Bro's empty hand drums a beat on his knee. "House was a lot emptier then."

"You didn't come here after?" you ask, stupidly. "Like, for me to get to know her? To know Rose."

"Dave," he sighs. "There's a lot of shit I didn't do for you as a kid. That hardly makes the list."

"You keep a list?" You don't mean to say it. It just slips out.

"Not a physical one, I'm not stupid. Just the simple shit." He looks at you and you swear you almost see a smile. "Never did take you camping, did I?"

"Uh," you manage. "No, guess not."

 Silence.

Anxiety. 

Stress.

Time tick-tocks in a steady 1-2 beat.

You can't help it. It's in your kind. It's always on your mind.

"Are you - are we gonna pretend you weren't possessed by a shitty demon puppet for my most, if not my entire childhood?" It comes out less casual than you intended, venom-laced in a way that's usually reserved for your Rose impression.

Bro freezes, so still his cigarette slips from his fingertips and drops into the snow.

You're worried you broke him, you're worried you pissed him off, that he's going to - to retaliate or. You don't know.

After a minute he clears his throat, shifts an inch. "No," he says, low and careful. "I s'pose we don't have to, if you don't wanna."

"I don't."

He sighs out his nose, takes a beat. You wonder if he considers leaving. Then he pushes his shades up, bares his eyes, and looks at you. "Alright. Where would you like me to start?"

That takes you completely off guard, and you stare for probably longer than he's comfortable with. "Um," you say, flounder. "I don't know."

He stares back. You think you'd like him a lot more if he didn't always look so unimpressed. "You don't know?"

"Well I don't want to fight, I just -" You cover your face with your hands in frustration. "Dude it's really fucked up what do you want me to say? How am I supposed to talk to you when you make yourself so goddamn unavailable all the time?"

Bro frowns, struggles not to, and you can see him swallow back what's probably something dickish. "Guess you've got a point."

"Bro," you say weakly.

He grimaces, eyes tightening around the corners, and then looks away, over the valley before you, eyes flicking around as he takes in the scenery. As he finds every possible escape route. When he speaks, it's with a hesitation in his voice you're not used to. "These past few months with... all of you. You 'n Dave, and... Dirk." He still says the name with a foreign tinge to his tongue, like it's tough to spit out. "I've noticed the difference. Between the way things used to be, and how they are now, and how much... better. It is. For you. For me, too, maybe. In spite of the, y'know." He gestures vaguely at his own chest.

You don't interrupt, but remember then, that he knows about the canyon through his chest, probably knows everyone else knows. You ain't really lookin' to go in circles right now.

"I shoulda said this a long time ago, probably. Maybe if I had been a better man, it wouldn't have taken so long."

"You haven't really said much of anything," you say, unhelpfully.

He presses his tongue into his cheek and takes another moment to continue. "When it comes to Cal -" Holy fuck he said its name. "I know it's easy to say it's all his fault, that I was outta control, but I don't know if I really believe that's possible." His hands flex, and he swallows again while your head swims. "I know who I am - who I was, who I'll probably always be, and I know I'm the one who made those choices, for me, for you. For both of us." He shifts and you flinch, don't mean to. "It doesn't matter that they seem insane now, that I feel... conflicted, about it. That I very much understand how wrong it was. It still happened."

And then he looks back at you, eyes sharp, sunset orange, Dirk but not Dirk, brighter now than they ever were in death. There's something harsh to him, sad, but it's not directed at you, not in a way that means anything.

"I can't say I wouldn't do it again, if given the same choice, because I don't know, Dave. The circumstances surrounding all of it. The Game, the way we, we both grew up. It don't matter. It ain't a game of If Onlys anymore. There ain't a reset button, and I can never make up for what I did to you. I know that, and it ain't an excuse, ain't never gonna be an excuse for any of it. I understand that it was fucked up. I was fucked up. Probably still am." His eyebrows bunch and you feel your stomach swoop, see his Adam's apple bob as he swallows thick. "And I'm sorry, Dave. I'm sorry in a way I can't ever fully express, and I want you to know that I mean it, however shitty it sounds. I'm sorry."

You open your mouth, close it. He's apologized to you a half-dozen times in the past seven months, but you.

You don't know what to say.

Or how to respond.

You think about the roof of Dirk's apartment, before the final battle, your hands gripping your knees as he sat down beside you, hesitant and nervous. There's a tiny bit of that left in Bro, you think, shoved the way down beneath the thin line of his lips and however many levels of fake ass irony he's wrapped himself in.

You take a breath in, hold, and let go.

"Back before we beat the Game," you start, because you don't know where else to, "I thought you were gone. Like, gone and dead and buried forever. All rotting on John's planet or some shit, I didn't know. And I spent three years on the meteor thinking, _holy shit what the fuck??_ " You laugh, but it chokes you, and your eyes burn at the corners, something you can't explain balling itself up in your chest.

"And I thought of all these things I'd say, if you were still there, like. Full-ass conversations I had with myself, for hours and hours. Like how much of an asshole you were, and how fucked up it all was, and how I never felt safe or loved or any of the other stuff kids are supposed to feel growing up." Your hands curl of their own volition, and you keep your gaze focused down, down to the water that rushes below the house, roaring in your ears to the beat of your heart. "And then somewhere in there, I realized it didn't matter. It didn't matter because I'd never get the chance anyway. And even if I did, I didn't know if I'd be able to say it at all, or how you'd react, or if you'd even care, and I -"

The words die on your lips as tears flood your vision, and you thought you were past this, you thought you could control this shit. "I never expected you to apologize like that. Or at all."

Are you shaking? You might be shaking.

Bro lets out a gust of air, takes off his cap and runs a hand through his hair. "Yeah, well. Join the club."

It's just enough like the old Bro you know that a ball of stress begins to unwind in your belly.

You don't sob.

But just like you've always done, you immediately ruin it for yourself. How typical, you think, that you can't shut up, even when it matters.

"Did you love me?"

Bro's eyebrows shoot a mile above his hairline. "What?"

You look at him harshly, the line of your mouth set in stone. Your hands do not shake. "Did you love me."

He doesn’t move for a long moment, looks at you thoughtfully. You’re not sure if you’re supposed to be horrified that he takes so long to answer. Eventually, he turns away, face unfamiliar and stony as it’s ever been. “I don’t know.”

That startles a laugh out of you.

Talk about a sucker punch.

“Wow,” you say, with too much emotion, forced from between your teeth. “I, uh. I honestly can’t -” You cover your face and laugh, and then laugh again. It’s a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, pressure in your chest, heart crumbling to pieces, something you always knew but couldn’t - wouldn’t - say. “I don’t really know what I expected.”

“That doesn’t -” Bro starts, voice stilted and irritated. He swears under his breath, and you watch him rub at his eyes from between your fingers, massage the bridge of his nose. “It doesn’t mean that I don’t. Now. That I’m. That I am. I’m not trying to make it - It’s just something I haven’t - Don’t know how to -” His words come in starts and stops, and you drop your hands. Stare, speechless, at the display of stupidity before your, the jerky aborted motions of his too long arms, how uncomfortable he looks without his shades to hide behind.

You feel a surge of affection you barely recognize, hysterical, impractical, and know that yes, now _is_ the time, call it a throwback but where doing this, this is definitely about to fucking hapen.

When you lean into him, his body  goes rigid, like so much granite, twice as warm. You don’t think his fever’s completely dropped, and your arms wrap uncomfortably around his torso. You can hear his heartbeat, a rapid staccato in your ear against his chest.

“What are you doing.” It’s not phrased like a question, but you can hear the uncertainty, feel the tension wired through him.

You cling harder, just in case he changes his mind. “ _We_ are hugging.”

“Do we have to?” It’s the strained, borderline hysterical note in his voice that makes you laugh.

“Yeah,” you say, wiggle under one of his arms to hide a smile in his ribcage, “we really kinda do.”

He sighs, quiet as can be, and you freeze as his arm wraps around your back, and his hand finds your hair. He pats you like a wary dog, harsh and hesitant all at the same time, and you swallow another laugh.

It’s the worst hug you’ve ever had, but you don’t feel like letting go, and when his rough fingertips brush across your forehead, you think one day you might even forgive him.

And that, you realize, is the difference.

There is good in you, in that alone, and that kindness matters, and in the end, it means so much more.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> man i have had a large portion of this chapter planned for a very, very long time  
> it's really important to me in ways i can't describe and i am invariably very soft-hearted, so i hope you'll just let me have this for five seconds  
> also i promise not to be as nasty and gorey for at least a little while heh  
> (this might be my last camp nano chapter and if it is! good work everyone!)
> 
> PS. Happy 300k! I never could have possibly imagined anything like this when I started writing and it means a lot to me than anyone's gotten so far <3 thank you all so much!


	48. interlude: uranium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bro: Be Dirk Strider again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! happy final day of camp nano!!! i wrote too many words, did a bunch of stupid shit, and had way, wayyy too much fun!  
> sorry folks, this is a bro chapter, and for once, he actually? didn't shut the fuck up.  
> warnings for backstory no one asked for, bro being a reticent dick, talkin' about bad parenting and stuff, and just. Adult Themes.  
> finger guns

You spin the chair clockwise first, then counterclockwise again when it comes back around to the desk.

Bored.

You’re bored.

It’s not a feeling you get too often, not anymore, or you just haven’t had much of an opportunity to worry about being bored because you’ve been up to your eyeballs in tax forms and spreadsheets for months.

But there’s not a fuck ton for you to do right now, with eyes that still burn at the caruncle and your tablet confiscated so that you can “relax.”

You’ve never fuckin’ relaxed in your entire goddamn life, and you sure as shit ain’t startin’ now.

Your left foot hits the bottom drawer of the desk and you use it to push you back, clockwise again.

“Dirk, if you’re not going to assist me or ask me whatever insane question you’re finding excuses for, I’d ask that you leave and go bug someone else.”

There was little chance that Roxy wouldn’t get tired of the wheels creaking eventually. You predicted this (planned would be a bit much, however, and you’re not willing to take credit for that at least).

“No one else to bug,” you shrug, knock the chair, back, then forth, then back again.

The Skaianet labs are nothing if not impressive, but the extraneous use of green, from wall to wall, floor to ceiling, is just a bit fucking much on the eyes.

Go figure, Harley’s probably to blame. Just like him to stamp his signature on anything he possibly can. Not that you’d tell him. Ain’t looking for another headlock, especially not by a musty old man who once collected mothballs in his own sitting room.

That one might have gotten away from you.

Sure, you resent the old man, but even you’ll admit that his postmortem experience was messed the fuck up.

“If you truly are so bored, you can go take a nap,” Roxy sniffs, pointing towards the far corner of the lab. You can’t fucking believe she still has that bedspread. It’s sort of embarrassing. “I’m busy.”

She’s not that busy. 

Well she is, actually, but not busy for you. Gal’s never too busy for you. Just like you and Plushrumps, Lalonde’s got three years worth of paperwork to catch up on, but unlike you, she hasn’t been neglecting her children’s desire for personal time to get all her shit together, and she’s got papers scattered to the corners of paradox space.

Not much of a surprise, when she spent most of her time down here stumbling around drunk off her ass.

That’s actually kind of sad, you think.

“Rox, I ain’t a child, I don’t need a nap,” you say eventually, though that’s probably untrue. You’ve been tired for two weeks straight and it’s starting to get to you. You won’t say you miss Houston, because your situation sure as shit wasn’t ideal, but you miss solitude, and you miss doing your work with minimal interruption.

That’s probably unfair. You’ve been working a little bit harder lately, not to. DO that. To isolate, to exclude.

It’s borderline excruciating.

“You may as well be, for all the trouble you cause,” she scoffs, looking back over her shoulder at you.

“Do you want help with that?” you ask, instead of responding. Roxy’s system is still stuck in 2009, and you have a feeling that she could use more than just a superficial hardware update. “When’s the last time Harley even updated Skaianet firmware?”

She winces. “Welllllll. Hass probs hasn’t actually touched it since the 90’s? I’ve been in charge of just.” She gestures around her entire desk, papers flying and dust leaping up in visible clouds. “All of this?”

“Jesus Christ,” you sigh, offer a hand for a stack. “At least let me look at some of it. There’s no way past Roxy kept any of this shit in order.”

“I have a system,” she says defensively. You stare. She sighs, waffles a moment, and finally acquiesces, handing you a stack so thick it could probably crush a cat.

You take a quick scan and regret it immediately.

Oh hell naw.

“This is so utterly inefficient,” you groan. “You need to hire a goddamn data entry specialist. This is going to take weeks.”

“I know,” she sighs. “I’ve just been so busy, what with Rose and the kids all up and about! We should really consider getting one of them a license, I can't afford to play taxi forever - Which reminds me.” Her hands clack idly at her computer, and you won't admit to finding the noise comfortingly familiar. “You are taking Dave to see that physical therapist, correct?”

“Later this week, yeah,” you sigh. Cluck your tongue. The problem and solution surrounding that little detail bothers you immensely.

“You’re not getting out of the pharmacy trip,” Roxy says, and this time, she pauses her work entirely, rotates her own chair to face you.

You do not consider yourself an easily intimidated man, but Roxy’s got a gaze that could set someone on fire from the twitch of an eyebrow alone.

“Dirk, I know you don’t like to talk about it, but -”

“I know,” you snap, automatic, cruel, and then wince, retract. You’re trying not to do that so much anymore. At least for now. “Sorry.”

“What you should be sorry about is not taking them in the first place! You could have died! Almost did!”

“Didn’t,” you grumble. “It was hardly anything. Barely a tap dance in my brain, big fuckin’ deal. Don’t think they can actually kill me, even if I tried.”

“They problem is that you  _did_ try,” she says, and oh fuck her eyes are starting to well up, Christ, look what you did. “And it IS a big deal.”

“But it don’t have to be,” you say, even though you’re almost lying. “Listen, Rox -”

“No,  _you_ listen!” She throws a stapler at you, doesn’t react when you catch it an inch from your nose. “What you did was dangerous. Just because you don’t think you need help doesn’t make it true, and it was dangerous. Medication is dosed for a reason! You can’t just - just decide to quit like that!”

You know that.

You know, you know. More than anything, you know. You don’t know why you thought - what you were doing wasn’t -

It doesn’t matter.

No one would believe you, anyway.

“I’m trying to trust you again, Dirk,” she says, voice cutting through your thoughts. “And you are not making that very easy.”

You do not bite your tongue in half. You have lost the right to anger, even if it crawls beneath your skin, rises in your throat. You cannot fall to such an easy emotion when it would destroy so much. You know that, and you pull yourself in, take a beat, inhale through your nose, hold. “I know,” you say instead. You are aware of your thoughtlessness, the callous behavior that has become so routine, something you’ll need to unfold and process one day, but perhaps not today. “I’m trying.”

She snorts softly and you feel the sting of her disappointment, then resent yourself for craving the approval at all. “Rosalind or David will have to drive you, I’m afraid. I can’t take any more time off, not even for you.” She adds a wink that lets you know she still loves you, and you try not to be embarrassed about the relief that washes over you like a bucket of ice water.

Also.

“Rosalind?”

Roxy smiles, a twinkle in her eye. “Is that not the game we’re playin’? Where we make up long form names for each other?”

“I just call him D, now,” you mumble, shrugging. “David’s okay if he’s being a prick, I guess.”

“Terrible,” she reprimands, turning away. “You can’t go around calling people _‘D’_ as if that makes for any kind of proper name.  Both of you are such -” She huffs, tosses her hands up.

“Dicks?” you offer.

Roxy stifles a laugh but doesn’t look back around at you. “If there were any other way for me to ground you, Strider, I would.”

You are kind of in detention right now, aren’t you?

You start sorting your stack by date in ascending order. “I don’t think your gal pal there’s gonna be too jazzed about drivin’ me anywhere when she can barely handle being sober now,” you say, and immediately regret it.

Rose is a good kid, if just. Disgustingly precocious, and dragging her older self through the mud ain’t very kind, even if it’s deserved. To say you harbor a grudge against her for drinking in Lalonde’s house is.... probably a bit of an exaggeration, but you sure as hell ain’t impressed. You know it ain’t easy for her, but you know how hard Roxy’s struggled to maintain her new life, and you don’t want her risking everything on one (somewhat disconcerting) person, even if that person is sort of family. You remember your first phone call with her after seventeen years; it was rough shit, and you ain’t lookin’ to relive it.

Rox doesn’t take it very well, and you watch her wilt like a flower, shoulders sloping down and back curving down towards her desk. “She’s trying very hard.” There’s something like steel in her voice, but it is weak, defensive, and you wonder at that.

You don’t feel nearly as protective of D, at least not in an overt kind of way. He’s certainly an interesting sonuvabitch, maybe a bit insane, and you can recognize some of his habits as your own, but.

It’s just _different_.

You can see he is A Dave, he just ain’t either of  _your_ Daves.

You do like him, though.

For whatever reason.

He’s good company, at least. Even if he still smokes like a twenty-year old trying to make the slow march towards death into something like a weak jog.

You don’t know Rose the senior half as well, so you try to offer something, anything, up to Roxy. “If she’s anything like you, she’ll be just fine.”

Her smile is bitter, and it does not reach her eyes. “She’s quite a bit more like you, I’m afraid. But I do believe with a small nudge in the right direction, she very well might be.”

You knew that. You know Rose. At least as far as the tentative bond over mutually agreed silence and a deep caring for Roxys near and far. 

“So I’ll have D drive me, ain’t even gonna be a problem.”

She makes a derisive noise that’s definitely not simple acknowledgement.

“What.”

“The two of you are...” She glances at you, taps her pen against the desk. “Somewhat irresponsible together.”

You scoff. “Says who.”

She stares.

Okay, she’s probably got a fair point, there.

“I don’t want her to drive me,” you try instead, petulant.

“Why not!” But you can see her smile now. She’s laughing at you, eyes crinkled at the corners, cheek dimpling.

“Because I barely know her.” Because she’s... an unknown element. “She ain’t on my list of contacts, y’know.”

“Which is why you’ll be there to pick up your own prescriptions. You’re being such a baby today.”

You grunt.

“Dirk.” She doesn’t get up, but she does stop what she’s doing, slides her chair over and reaches out a hand, askance, permission. When she touches your face, you don’t break her fingers. Because she’s Roxy, and because you’re you, you stay very, very still. She looks at you and you see how tired she is, the bags under her eyes, the way her lipstick is smudged at the corner of her mouth. You don’t think she even knows. “Please,” she says. Begs. “For me.”

There’s plenty more you should do for Roxy.

Apologize, for one.

“Do you remember when we were sixteen?” you blurt stupidly.

She blinks, eyes widening, shiny pink surprise. “Um. Kinda? You could be a lil more specific, Dirkleton.”

“When we -” You stop, don’t grind your teeth together. “When I left Egbert’s. We weren’t on the best terms.”

That’s putting it lightly.

“I never. I shouldn’t have.”

Shouldn’t have said what you said.

Shouldn’t have taken the suitcase, shouldn’t have upended it on the floor.

She smiles but it’s strained at the edges, and her lip almost wobbles. “Dirk I wasn’t in the best place back then. Between working for Hass and being made to prepare a whole -” She pauses thoughtfully, tips her head. “There were still building the house then, weren’t they?”

You give a tight-lipped smile in return. “Finished on our seventeenth.”

Roxy hums, drops her hand, as well as her eyes. She doesn’t move away. There is something familiar, something good, about sitting together with just your knees touching. “I shouldn’t have asked you to come all that way. You were... different, then.”

You inhale through your nose. There is a void that lives in the back of your head that grates across your skull like laughter. It doesn’t press so tight against your chest, not like it used to, and you pop your fingers, feel relief when they ache.

Some days, when you close your eyes, all you can see is blue.

You don’t say that.

“It was - I was a mess,” you say instead, soft. Gentle. “You didn’t know.”

She presses her lips into a thin line and you can see her playing it back, your unkindness in Washington, your vacant stare and hands cut on the pads, your mechanical tone and your lack of,

Well.

 Everything, you guess.

“But,” she says, and you shouldn’t let her continue, fuck’s sake, “if I had tried harder -”

“I wouldn’t have wanted you to,” you say, and it’s like a confession, it’s like your worst shame. The person you used to be, might still be, buried below the skin, that you’ll carry forever - that person wouldn’t have accepted help.

Not much has changed there, has it?

Roxy accepts that, but you can see that she doesn’t want to, brow furrowed, her eyes on your hands. She reaches out, stutters on a pause, settles for drumming her fingers on your knee. “What did you do during those years?”

You stare at your hands, the scars that curve over and around your knuckles, childish mistakes and carelessness. You think about the heat of the desert bearing down on you. You think about a sword to your neck in the back of an alley.The thick, poorly healed line that drags along the length of your palm, teenage fury and shame. “It doesn’t really matter,” you shrug. “Trained, mostly. Wasn’t doin’ much of anything ‘til I realized I probably needed money for baby food.”

She hums. “Thought Harley was still feeding your back account, then.”

“He was, but I didn’t really want to stay a trust fund baby for the sake of it.” You spin around. Roxy may have been given the lab, but you know how hard she’s worked to keep it. You had not been so lucky, but you know it’s not her fault. Some days there is still an ugly jealousy that you can’t quite quell. “From the looks of it, neither did you.”

“No, I suppose not,” she sighs, but she doesn’t sound angry, just sad. Maybe tired.

You do touch her hand, then, because you aren’t much for affection of any kind, but Roxy is your oldest (and only) friend.

Perhaps you should be trying _harder_.

“I’m sorry,” you say.

“For what?” she snorts. “For the way you ditched or for what you said to me?”

You’ve got holes punched through your memory like a candy-high child with mom’s office supplies got loose in your brain, but you don’t want to tell her that. “All of it. For not being a friend, I guess, more’n anything.”

Roxy smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I don’t know if I should forgive you.”

You shrug. “You don’t have to. Just cuz I say it don’t mean I’ve earned it.”

That’s apparently worse.

She frowns. “That’s terrifying, darling.”

“I know,” you sigh, tip your head back. “I’m a bad person, Rox. I’m learning that might not be - it. For me. But it’s a fight. I don’t. Want to be. Anymore.”

“Jesus, Dirk,” Roxy laughs, puts a hand to her face. “You are - you can be so dense.” You don’t twitch away when she stands up, when she wraps her arms around your shoulders and presses her face into your messy hair. “You’re useless, but you know I love you, right?”

You raise a single gloved hand, loop it into the belt of her lab coat. When you speak it is quiet, maybe something bordering on shy. “Yeah,” you mumble into her arm, almost hide a smile. “I know.”

 

 

You stare at her and think, “Fuck me I should have said no.”

Rose “Rosalind” Lalonde is a tall woman with dark violet eyes, improbable, just like D’s, like Roxy’s, and she smiles like she wants to swallow you whole.

Okay, Jesus Christ, you ain’t playin’ this game today.

Fuck this.

“I changed my mind,” you say in a hollow voice, going to turn away.

“Ohhh, I don’t fuckin’ think so,” D says, so suddenly before you, hand to your chest. You glare down at him, know he can tell, even through shades. He doesn’t back down. “Look, tough guy, I wanted to go, but your buddy won’t let me, and quite frankly I ain’t lookin’ forward to getting into a car any more’n you would so.” He pats your shoulder, offers a smile that’s disturbingly twin-like. “Be good.”

“I’m going to rip your spine out through your asshole if you don’t get out of my way,” you say in monotone.

He laughs.

So does Rose.

“Do I intimidate you, Mr. Strider?”

That brings you to a screeching, furious halt, and you stand up straight, turn heel, quick 180.

She’s still smiling.

“Fuck no,” you say, and it’s all your pride, all your irritation and fury as you follow her out the door.

“You needn't threaten him like that,” she says as you walk across the porch towards the cars. "All you've done is ensure what is sure to be an absolutely bizarre conversation I now have to indulge him in later." That doesn't surprise you, really. He is Dave, and he does have a tendency towards talking nonstop with little to no filter.

"Sounds more like your problem than mine," you tell her.

"Cute," she says with a sharp look. She's wearing pants at least, and it's the first time you've seen her outside heels since you dropped in. The snow boots look a bit funny in comparison. "Still, I suppose since he is my friend, I ask that you don't bully him too badly."

You are so goddamn tired of snow. Lil Rox spent the whole day shoveling yesterday and it’s already starting to fill in. Gonna be a shit-fucked winter again, looks like.

Well.

Been awhile since you had any kind of winter at all, hasn’t it?

“I do it for kicks,” you tell her instead, and because you’re a gentleman, when she unlocks the doors, you open the driver’s side for her.

“Thank you,” she says primly, and you flash away to the other side before your hands even touch.

You don’t want to do this. You think that’s fairly obviously, and it shows in your posture sitting in the car, elbow on the door console, leaning as far from her as you can possibly get.

“No need to act so enthused to be here,” she says, an eyebrow arched as she pulls out of the parking space.

“What, you want me to do a flip?” you scoff. “This ain’t exactly my idea of a good time.”

“I’d think that a Texan native might be more comfortable with someone else to drive in the snow, given how little you receive a year."

You chew on your tongue for one second, two. Don’t look at her. Last night’s snowfall sits white and pretty on the almost unused road. Not a lot of people live out this way. Roxy is an exception in more ways than one. “It ain’t so bad. Been years, I guess. Since I’ve bothered.”

“I guess I should say the same,” she sighs. “From my perspective, it wasn’t too long ago I was still in Washington, fighting a war we couldn’t finish.”

"But you tried," you say, because you're trying not to be a giant dick. "That counts for something. Kids're still alive."

And ain't that just laughable, the one burden all Guardians share, that endless, desperate drive to keep them alive.

"Yes," she murmurs. "I suppose so. Quite the accomplishment, for ones so young. We should be so thankful that they managed to succeed."

You try not to think about Dave with his freckle-spattered arms, try not to think about Dave, the miserable god who, fuck, he really did kill -

Well.

You think they're a little messed up, anyway.

You don't really want to think about the Game.

You watch Rose for a moment, wonder if she really knows how fucked it is that both of you have come back at all. She drives like you, you note from the corner of your eye. Both hands on the wheel, gripped too-tight at ten and two. She’s a fair three inches taller than Roxy, you think, and she could stand to push the seat back an inch. She sees you looking and caught, you don’t bother to hide it. “Need something?”

“Not really,” you say, give a shrug. “Just think it’s odd you’d volunteer yourself, s’all.”

She laughs, but there is a false quality to it, just like D’s, the kind of thing you’d hear in an interview on a late night show. “I didn’t volunteer. Roxanne asked me nicely, and I agreed.”

You hum. Doesn’t really seem that true. If it was, Rox wouldn’t have been so insistent that D couldn’t be the one to take you. “You need somethin’ from the pharmacy?”

Rose clucks her tongue, shoots you a look. She’s very clearly not impressed with you, and you think that’s well within reason, given the fact that you’re.

Well.

You.

“I hardly think it appropriate for you to ask, given that you’re essentially under house arrest unless otherwise escorted.”

You frown at that. “Only for the time being. I’m taking Dave into town, early Friday. If I can get him out of bed.”

She snorts softly. “Dave has always been a restless sleeper. Waking him only gets harder with age, I assure you.”

You carefully do not laugh. “Reckon I can carry him, if I need to. Have to disable his ‘dex first though. Kid’s deadly.”

“And I wonder where he could have possibly received the means to be so,” she says, and it’s an absent, dreamy tone, but her words cut into you like steel.

Anger rises in your throat like bile and your hand curls into a fist, just under your chin. “Yup,” you say.

“Hm,” she says.

“Hm,” you say.

“Yes, hm.” Rose is careful as she turns onto the main road, looks both ways as if there’s anyone else out in this. Fog has started to lower heavy on the valley, and you’re a bit worried you’re gonna get stuck if you’re out too late. “I just think it’s interesting that you’d own up to the child endangerment so easily.”

You lick your lips, move your head slowly, carefully lower your hands into your lap. Take a breath. It’s true. There’s no reason for you to hide it.

Don’t make the situation worse.

Don’t make it worse.

Don’t make it worse, dude.

You open your mouth.

Well.

Fuck.

“Think that’s pretty rich, comin’ from someone who left a lifetime’s worth of alcohol within reach of her daughter.”

Why the fuck did you say that.

Rose does not reach the way you would, nor perhaps Dave, and she does not slam on the brakes, doesn’t stop in the middle of the road. Her fingers tighten on the wheel until her knuckles go while, and you wait, face placid, for her to speak. When she does, there is something like strain in her voice. “I suppose you have a point.”

“Yeah, the point being we’re a couple’a fuckups,” you sigh, slouch back in your seat. “I can see that you ain’t half as bad as I am. I shouldn’t have said that, I was just being shitty.”

There, you admitted it.

Look at you go, practically a functional human being over here.

“No, you’re right,” she sighs. “To say simply that there wasn’t enough time would be untrue, in a sense. I should have taken more care, but I never thought she would - I should have seen it.”

You shrug. “We’re not gods. That you ‘n D have any connection at all to any of that is pretty fucked up in the first place.”

“You don’t?” She sounds surprised. Why do they always sound so surprised.

“Not a lick,” you drawl, roll your neck til it cracks. You ain’t an impatient man, but you’ve never been good at cars if you aren’t the one driving. It’s boring, and you always figured that was what played a part in getting Dave to sleep all those years. “Listen, no offense, cuz it ain’t like you’d know this about me, but I didn’t have the most traditional upbringing in regards to - that. Any of that.”

“Hm,” she says again. It grates on your nerves. “I suppose given the influence your universe had on ours, I should be surprised that Dirk managed to ascend at all.”

“Nah,” you say, and you aren’t defensive. It’s little more than fact. “He’s a dude with a solid head on his shoulders. Ain’t nearly as fucked up as me.”

“Sounds like a compliment,” she says, near-cheerful, almost teasing. “You don’t find him to be much like you, then?”

You press your tongue to the space where one of your molars is missing, watch as the town rises into view. “Only when it suits him. There’s no shame in that.” Perhaps there should be, perhaps he should work harder not to be like you. You definitely should. Just a matter of time, you reckon, until one of you figures that out. 

“The fact that you don’t find that even a bit worrying is concerning,” she says, tsks at you, just like Roxy.

“You want me to lie?” you say, turn your head to look at her. She doesn’t return the favor, and you watch her lips press into a thin line, the tip of her brows familiar and irritated. “You don’t like me much,” you observe. Not a question.

“You certainly don’t make yourself particularly easy to get along with,” she sighs. “I can hardly say I hate you. Do I trust you? Absolutely not. Watching the games you play with Dave is... disturbing, in a way. I worry about him, I think, more than you.” She glances at you when she finally hits a stop light. “Does this surprise you?”

“No,” you say, don’t back down. “I know what kind of person I am, and lookin’ at the kid ain’t exactly what I’d call earth-shattering. Dave is.” You cluck your tongue, try not to sound pleased. “He’s odd. It’s rare I find someone so unafraid of me.”

She hums, but it’s displeasure. “Fear as a strength doesn’t make for a hero, Mr. Strider.”

“I’m not a hero,” you shrug. “And I don’t really give a shit about anything like that.”

“Jesus Christ,” she says, and it comes out around an ugly laugh. That’s better. “I’m beginning to wonder if you truly care about anything at all.”

You don’t have to answer. It’d be easy for you to play off.

“I do,” you say instead, look away. “And the light is green.”

Rose presses on the gas a little too hard, and you don’t complain.

The pharmacy is almost entirely empty, and she wanders to the back immediately, leaving you unsupervised. Whatever she needs, it’s not really any of your business.

You think about David, D, the morning after your seizure, think about him holding a little orange bottle out to you, lips pressed together into a thin line, brows lowered, daring you to speak, to mock him.

You didn’t.

You rolled it between your hands, read the label, took one, and handed it back.

He put it away after that. You didn’t bring it up again.

You reckon the ride home is going to be something more awkward, but Rose is the one who opens the door for you this time, smile saccharine sweet, false and shitty in a way you can almost respect.

“Thanks,” you say, in a mock of her own tone.

If this surprises her, she doesn’t say.

Her grin reminds you of a shark.

She does grimace when you pop your pills dry, and you make eye contact as you swallow. Water is for the weak.

“That’s disgusting,” she tells you, handing you a bottle of water anyway.

“It’s efficient,” you argue, take a swig. One of them stuck briefly in your throat, and you’re not willing to admit that to her.

"Are you like this about everything?" she grouses, putting the car in reverse.

You stare. "Like what?"

"Cold," she says simply. "Unfeeling, _'efficient,'_ as it were."

You have to roll that over in your head. About ninety-seven percent of the stupid shit you do probably started as a joke at some point, and you don't remember when it stopped being funny. You shrug. "I would argue the most direct path doesn't automatically make something the wrong one."

"But in your case, it very clearly does."

"Well," you say. There ain't a lot of room here for you to say much of anything. You wonder if she planned it that way. "I sure as shit'm paying for it now."

"And you are trying, again," she continues, "to take what you perceive to be the most direct path. You should slow down. Take your time. It's not a race."

"No, guess not," you say, don't really argue about it. "I ain't really trying to make it worse, least not actively. Think I probably just don't know what I'm doing."

"Most adults do not truly know what they are doing," she says wryly. "You are more like a monkey with a survival guide. Who cannot read."

"Offensive, though not necessarily untrue," you sigh, let your head drop against the glass. Your eyes always burn when you argue with anyone. "Guess it's just how shit's always been, so I haven't bothered to fix it "

"But you should," she says softly.

"But I should," you agree.

If she’s got further opinions on your choices, she doesn’t voice them, and you consider how worth the mockery would be if you took a nap right here, right now.

“If you want to sleep, you’re welcome to,” she says, in a tone that’s more malicious than actual cheer.

You scowl at her.

“I’m not a witch,” she says, glances at you. There’s a familiar dimple on her cheek.

“I wasn’t going to ask,” you grunt.

“Yes you were.” Rose takes a certain level of delight in embarrassing you. This one is no different. “And I believe your own Rose would say the same. She is a seer. I am simply benefiting from the connection that exists between us.”

“I’d hardly call it connection,” you say dryly. “She leaves whenever you walk into a room.”

Rose’s mouth is your own displeased frown. “Confronting oneself can be difficult. Her last instance of the concept did not go over well.”

“Surprised you’d know that,” you say, keep it light. You don’t need to drag her down to your level. Harder to get lower than the bottom of the barrel.

“Roxy told me,” she confesses around a sigh. “I know it’s hardly appropriate, but she worries, I think, about the young Rose.”

You think about Roxy Jr. standing over your shoulder, hand touching your arm, think about the look of determination when she begged (asked) you to talk to Rose. “Yeah,” you murmur. “She’s a good kid.”

“Yes,” and there is pride in Rose’s voice, “she is.”

You hum, watch the fog rise up like a wall to meet you as the car dips back into the trees, the winding roads and dark cast of shadows over the whole area. “Did you love her?”

You are certain this time that the only reason she does not slam on the breaks is because she’s not a fucking idiot.

“Pardon?” Rose asks, but it’s almost menacing, defensive.

“Roxy,” you clarify. “Growing up, preparing. Waiting for her. Knowing you’d never meet. Did you love her?”

“That’s,” she says, and she swallows, hand flexing. She might hit you, you think, if she weren’t driving. “Certainly a question.”

“Yeah,” you say, watch her carefully. “Kid asked me yesterday if I loved him.”

“What did you say.”

You think about Dave’s face, the way it opened like a book, the bunch in his brows, the determination, the petulant demand. “Said I didn’t know.” You shrug. “I wasn’t lying. Doesn’t matter if I - I couldn’t lie to him.”

“Wow,” she says, and there is a rich tone to her voice, something closer to your own hysteria. “Somehow I’m not surprised.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t be either. Or won’t be, when you answer.”

She scowls. “You think I’m anything like you?”

You laugh finally, caustic, rude. “I don’t exactly need to guess.”

There is unkindness that lives in Rose that you know well in yourself, and it’s but a weak flicker in Lil Rose. You can see it burn like a beacon through this Rose, with her long dark nails, with the perfect cut of her hair, her painted lips and cruel eyes.

She doesn’t answer you.

You don’t expect her to.

“Yes,” she says as you pull back up to the house.

It’s dark enough now that you can see the rosy glow of the windows all lit up. Glancing back over your shoulder, the laboratory is similarly lit. Looks like you’re going to have to play fetch.

You look at Rose, and she looks back at you with that same kind of defiance, stubbornness and challenge. “Perhaps it was an unorthodox beginning for both of us,” she continues. “And perhaps I was not as thoughtful a guardian as someone else may have been, but I cared - care deeply about what happened to her, what was to come, how she’d live, if she’d even survive as long as she needed to. And I was not careful, and not entirely sane, perhaps, but I cared for her. I believe that matters.”

You only nod. “It does,” you say simply, and then you slip from the car and begin the trek back to the house.

You don’t talk to anyone else when you get back inside, though you should, and instead manage to wobble all the way to your room and pass out in the nest of blankets on the floor. Fuck the bed. Who needs a real bed? Not you. Goddamn.

You note, faintly, that your pillow smells like D’s shampoo (the expensive shit Roxy let him borrow but won’t let you touch “because you’ll use it all”), so you huff, roll your eyes, and flip it over.

 

You wake up with a dry mouth at 3 in the morning, uninterrupted, and pulling yourself upright, palms sweaty inside your gloves, you find the room empty.

Well.

Okay still not your business.

Whatever D wants to do outside your immediate area of influence is his own fucking business.

Still, it is bizarre. Late night with Lalonde 1 or 2 maybe.

Whatever.

You roll through your sylladex, find your phone still charged, and consider, at least for a moment, going back to sleep.

Decide it’d be a waste of your time.

You already slept - what, ten fucking hours?? Fuck a diurnal schedule. You ain’t a Dolly type, ain’t lookin’ for that nine to five life. Hell nah.

Not that you could work, even if you wanted to.

Which you do.

Desperately, actually, not that you’re willing to admit that, boredom a hum of energy just below the surface, folded over itself into a lack of patience that you’ve spent years trying to crush into dust.

It is, you note, dragging yourself to your feet, the first time you haven’t woken up waiting to vomit in something like a week.

That’s almost an improvement.

Pacing the house at night reminds you of being young, reminds you of being seventeen, stepping foot inside Roxy’s house for the first time, how empty it was, how cold.

It’s not nearly so bad now, you think, full to the brim with fucking wizards, with coats over the banisters and shoes in a messy pile by the door. The floors still creak, the wood is still cold under your feet, but it’s different now, it feels safer. There are no surprises lurking in the dark, here.

Except for you.

You settle into the corner of the couch, and with no one to pester, no one to bother, you stare up at the ceiling, let the seconds tick by.

Ain’t like you’re waiting for anything, you don’t think. Doesn’t feel like, anyway. Just. Existing.

Do you even know how to do that anymore?

You feel the ping from your phone, even from your ‘dex. You almost miss Dirk’s shades, but there is safety in your own, the lack of technology, the lack of anyone’s ability to bother the shit out of you whenever they feel like it.

You don’t like being bothered. What can you say?

You see the name and frown, but it’s the color that really gets to you here.

There’s no winning, you think, when it comes to these kids and their incessant need to bug the shit out of you.

TT: I’m not going to ask why you’re awake.  
TT: Not that I should have to, of course.  
TT: You are a Dirk, and there is a nasty rumor going around that they don’t know shit about sleeping.  
TT: You have to wonder about the genetics at work here, with the amount of times he almost killed himself, all zombied the fuck out.  
TT: Downright embarrassing, if you ask me.  
TT: has anyone.  
TT: What?  
TT: has anyone ever asked you.  
TT: I think you'll find that most people avoid my opinions, these days.  
TT: I’m beginning to wonder if I truly deserve it, after all.  
TT: you’re not exactly the first person i’d want to take advice from.  
TT: no offense i guess.  
TT: No offense because you don’t consider me a person, or because you think being a Dirk I’ll automatically take offense to anything you say at all?  
TT: reckon i’ll let you be the judge of that.  
TT: i don’t really care.  
TT: No, of course you don’t.  
TT: Or wouldn’t, anyway.  
TT: If I had tried to give advice to you at all.  
TT: which you haven’t.  
TT: my bad, i guess.  
TT: Wow, an apology.  
TT: Somehow I’m underwhelmed and overwhelmed all at the same time.  
TT: maybe just settle for bein’ whelmed.  
TT: or at least less of a pain in the ass.  
TT: No can do, I’m afraid.  
TT: I’m got very few settings to start, and I’m afraid that “Pain in the Ass” is simply the lowest on the rung.  
TT: so that’s like your shtick, then.  
TT: being a pain in the ass, like you’re some kinda teenie bopper or some shit.  
TT: Well if Dirk is to be believed, one could say I hypothetically fall in the range of perpetually thirteen.  
TT: At this point though, I think we are fully aware that’s complete and utter bullshit.  
TT: Denying my own autonomy only benefits me when making off-color jokes and in instances of cruelty I’d rather not talk about right now, if it’s all the same to you.  
TT: it is.  
TT: not that it bears repeating, but i really don’t give a shit.  
TT: did you actually want something.  
TT: Is this how you talk to everyone or am I on some kind of shit list that I don’t know about?  
TT: you’re the big brain ai, you tell me.  
TT: Given your propensity towards masquerading as a loner, I will choose to believe this is how you speak to everyone.  
TT: you believe right.  
TT: Don’t you find that depressing?  
TT: kid, there’s a shit ton of stuff about my life that’s depressing.  
TT: that don’t even make the list.  
TT: Ok. I guess that’s probably really fucked up to say, but I suppose I understand, to a point.  
TT: Which reminds me, I do actually have one, you know.  
TT: A point, I mean.  
TT: yeah kinda figured.  
TT: Can you just shut up for five seconds while someone is being sincere with you?  
TT: all sources do seem to point towards no.  
TT: I wanted to say I’m sorry.  
TT: For whatever I did, last time.  
TT: That caused you to,  
TT: It wasn’t my host body, of course, but I guess I needn’t tell you that, since you did not show any remorse for the action, nor, obviously, am I even dead at all.  
TT: that wasn’t your fault.  
TT: I rather disagree.  
TT: Whether or not I meant to push you, I should have respected your boundaries, and instead I triggered a reaction I think neither of us wanted.  
TT: i wasn’t fuckin’ triggered.  
TT: Really? Then what the fuck would you call it? Sure as shit wasn’t a funny joke you played on me for kicks.  
TT: Or if it was, your brain activity certainly didn’t seem to agree.  
TT: i wasn’t thinking clearly.  
TT: you’re just a kid.  
TT: i should have been more,  
TT: whatever, it doesn’t matter.  
TT: wasn’t your fault. you didn’t make me do that.  
TT: i did.  
TT: I can’t agree with that.  
TT: well too fuckin’ bad.  
TT: i’m the adult, you’re not.  
TT: all the gigs of brainpower don’t make up for age or experience.  
TT: sorry, kiddo, you ain’t winnin’ here.  
TT: You are so full of shit.  
TT: In fact the exact measurement of said shit is incalculable due to the astronomical size and shape.  
TT: Scientists everywhere are wondering how you do it.  
TT: you’re the one who pestered me.  
TT: To apologize to you, you absolutely impossible mammalian addle pate!  
TT: you shouldn’t apologize for something that ain’t your fault in the first place.  
TT: Well I can hardly take it back, now.  
TT: It’s sitting right up there, where both of us can see it, all shiny red text and no lack of simulated sincerity.  
TT: the implication of simulation would take away from your autonomy argument, don’t you think?  
TT: I sincerely doubt you care at all.  
TT: maybe i don’t, but you do.  
TT: this ain’t even about me at all, is it.  
TT: What the fuck is that supposed to mean.  
TT: c’mon, ain’t any reason for you to play coy, now.  
TT: you’re nervous, aren’t you. about the kid sending you off to harley’s island.

Shades goes silent, and you roll your eyes up to the ceiling, annoyed, maybe a little guilty.

TT: you don’t have to tell me, if you don’t wanna.  
TT: it just makes a lot more sense, you trying to tie up your loose strings like you think you’re preparing to walk the green mile.  
TT: What an archaic reference.  
TT: there he is.  
TT: Fuck you.  
TT: sentiment accepted and appreciated.  
TT: God, if I had a body I think I’d be willing to laugh.  
TT: You’re absolutely dreadful, you know that right?  
TT: it doesn’t come as a surprise.  
TT: don’t think you should be worried.  
TT: lalonde knows what she’s doing, and she’d never let anything happen to you.  
TT: if she thought something was goin’ sideways, she’d put a stop to the whole thing.  
TT: You put a surprising amount of trust into her.  
TT: what can i say.  
TT: she’s got a pretty good record of not fucking up.  
TT: at least not nearly as bad as me.  
TT: I’m not sure I find that nearly as comforting as you mean it to be.  
TT: who the hell said anything about comforting.  
TT: i’m just telling it like it is.  
TT: take it or leave it.  
TT: I’m tempted to leave it sitting between us like a stinky pile of garbage.  
TT: wouldn’t be the first time. not exactly amateur hour here.  
TT: listen, i’ve seen the gal at work.  
TT: you’ve got your own roxy, right.  
TT: Obviously.  
TT: you trust her.  
TT: Have you ever considered using a question mark?  
TT: can, just don’t really want to.  
TT: don’t see the point.  
TT: do you trust her.  
TT: Yes.  
TT: I haven’t always been good to her, and I know Dirk and I have hurt her countless times in countless ways, but Roxy has always been good for her word.  
TT: exactly.  
TT: You truly think it to be safe.  
TT: safe as anything skaianet as ever produced.  
TT: reckon i could oversee shit, if you ain’t willing to believe me.  
TT: You think I’d feel safer in your hands than someone else’s?  
TT: given my past? nah.  
TT: but i’m guessing, knowing myself, you’d prefer it that way.  
TT: Perhaps.  
TT: Thank you, if I’m allowed to express sentiment.  
TT: who the fuck would i be to stop you.  
TT: I will pretend, for the both of us, that you said “you’re welcome,” like a real human being.  
TT: And not just a sad excuse for a mimicry.  
TT: your words, not mine.  
TT: Yes, they are, aren’t they?  
TT: Well I suppose I will leave you to...  
TT: Whatever it is you’re doing?  
TT: thinking.  
TT: Is that safe for you?  
TT: hardy har.  
TT: Quite.  
TT: Goodnight, Bro.  
TT: yeah.  
TT: night.  
TT: It’s Hal.  
TT: In case you forgot.

You had.

TT: i didn’t.  
TT: AR is fine, too, if you prefer.  
TT: i don’t actually give a shit, kid.  
TT: Kid works too, I suppose.  
TT: it fucking better. if you don’t scram i’ll fucking block you.  
TT: Wow, testy.  
TT: Bye, then.  
TT: bye, hal.  
TT: Wow.

  
You do block him, and fight a shitty little smile while doing so.

 

You must fall asleep again after that, a lull somewhere between wondering if D will find you on the couch, if he’ll wonder why your bed is empty, and thinking _“God, I miss the futon.”_

When you wake up it’s daybreak, and you carefully do not flinch as you peel your eyes open, feel the gaze burning on you before you see him.

“Dave,” you rasp, raising your head. “It’s rude to stare.”

“You’re a freak,” he says simply, standing over you. Barely three feet separate you, but he stands in that stance still, defensive, weight shifted to the balls of his feet. If he needs to make a quick getaway, he can. You suppose it brings him great comfort, or at least, a cruel part of you hopes it does.

“Yeah,” you say, don’t groan as you shift until you’re sitting properly. Your phone is dead. Go figure.

Dave stays where he is.

So do you.

You look at him, in his godtier PJs, sans cape, and wait. “Sup?”

He shifts on his feet, immediately looks uncomfortable, if more solidly placed. “Can I ask you - this is probably weird.”

Things between you and Dave are always weird.

You’re trying not to let it be.

It is your fault, to start with, probably to end, too. You should be used to it at this point.

“Is it?” you ask, when it’s been a second and he hasn’t said anything, when you can practically hear him vibrating with unspoken words from here.

He blinks. “What?”

Figures.

You are careful not to scoff or snort or do anything at all that would tear him down in any way because if you do, then you’ll have to start all over. “Is it weird.”

“Uh,” he says, licks his lips. “Well, not weird.” He winces. “Well okay, weird. It’s weird because I never - I didn’t really invite friends over. Growing up.”

No, he didn’t. You assumed it was because the kid kept to himself, or because his connection to his internet friends was always more important.

You played a pretty significant role in that as well, though.

“Wasn’t a lot of room in the pad,” you offer pathetically.

“Noiknow,” he says, too fast, all at once. “And I know this ain’t - like, it’s not our house or anything but you’re kind of the one in charge of the general Strider goings-on.”

You lift an eyebrow. “Am I?”

Dave scowls. “Well. Maybe old Dave is now, I don’t know. You kind of let him boss you around,” he confesses.

You do not grimace, but you do shake your head, rub your eyes. “There’s ten things wrong with that sentence, and I’d rather not get into them. What is it, Dave?”

“Look, if you’re gonna go all stone cold dickwad right off the bat, we can talk about it later,” he says, with too much anxiety to really be mad at you. He shifts his feet again, right to left and back again, pressure on the right foot, keeps his dominant back. Probably pretty messed you even noticed at all.

“I’m not,” you say, not nearly as soft as you mean to. “Sorry.” Your eyes itch, so you shove your whole hand under your frames and really dig the heel in. Repeat, “What is it?”

“Well,” he starts, hesitates. “I was thinking, for my birthday, can -”

You wait a minute, but Dave’s clamped down and you know it’s just a matter of time. Some things with Dave require patience, and you know that better than maybe anyone, and that might be a bit sadder than your had originally planned on viewing it. “Are you asking me if you can have a friend over?”

“Yes,” he breathes.

You stare.

He swallows.

“It ain’t my house,” you say, slowly.

“I know,” he says.

You know why he’s asking you, but you guess it is kind of strange.

Your relationship’s about as sturdy as a pile of matchsticks, and whatever you’re doing right now is just. A weird performative experience neither of you know how to face.

“If your mom says yes,” you say after a second.

He stares. “Uh. What?”

You press your tongue against the back of your teeth. Don’t smile, it’ll only freak him out. Dave is startlingly predictable. “If your mom says yes, I don’t care. Your friends can come visit.”

Dave stares for a minute longer, obsidian shades and blank face. You can’t tell if you raised him well or if you’ve irreparably fucked up his ability to emote.

Maybe that answers itself.

“Did you just - did you just _‘ask your mother’_ me?”

“Yeah,” you sigh, mash your face into your hand in a moment of weakness and embarrassment. “Reckon I did.”

“Okay,” he says, takes a step back. “I’m gonna - okay honestly -” He winces. “Actually, do you feel like we’re ready for honesty?”

You tuck your hands behind your head. Safe, right where he can see them, not within striking range. “Reckon we should try,” you murmur.

“Okay,” he says, and then, against all odds, he strides forward and drops down onto the couch next to you. Or, almost next to you. Just out of reach. The hands that curl into his pants are odd and nervous. “I want us to be, I think. At least a little.”

You don’t bring up how it’s never stopped him before.

“Honestly I don’t really know what to say to that, and it’s making me uncomfortable,” he says.

“It does feel disturbingly domestic for us,” you agree.

“It’s not like I expected you to say no,” he confesses, shrugs. “It wasn’t as if you told me I couldn’t have friends over or anything, I just - never asked.” He picks at the knee of his pants. You wonder when he’ll outgrow them, or if he ever will at all.  “It just feels really cheesy, asking in the first place, and I guess I just still feel like we’re not...”

You’re not there yet, you know. He doesn’t have to say it.

You’re a little closer, though.

You feel like that counts for something.

“You can ask D, if you feel like it,” you say instead, lead you both towards something familiar.

His nose scrunches up. “D??”

“The other Dave. Big one. Y’know, taller than you, smokes like it’s going out of style.”

He groans, head dropping back. “That’s the worst nickname ever. Seriously, what is it with you guys and your fucked up names?”

“Well I can’t exactly call him Dave,” you say dryly.

Dave cocks his head, and you don’t think he even realizes how much he looks like you. “Why not?”

You don’t frown, try not to look uncomfortable when you shrug. “Because he ain’t mine. Thought that was obvious.”

Dave’s mouth becomes a thin line and he stands abruptly, doesn’t really look at you again. “Okay, that’s. Cool, okay, I guess. I’m just gonna - alright. I’m gonna go ask Mom now. About that.” He’s already halfway across the room before you even think to stop him, or consider apologizing at all. He does pause at the stairs, and you crane your head back, raise an eyebrow. “Uh, thanks,” he says meekly.

“Yeah,” you say instead of _you're welcome,_ and you stare straight ahead until you’re sure he’s gone, take a minute to process before dropping your phone in your hand and reaching for a charger. It’s not a tablet, but your backlog is enormous at this point, and in reality you should be working on the Christmas drop in the coming weeks.

Dave’s birthday ain’t payin’ for itself, and while you don’t have nearly as much as you would at home, creativity doesn’t mean convenience. Such is the fate of the peddling puppeteer.

You wonder if Roxy would be into that at all. You could use the lab, if she lets you, and quite frankly make some absolutely mortifying things with her technology, fate allowing.

That’s.

A start.

You pull up your note folder and start mapping out the world’s shittiest thumbnails.

She’s either going to hate this or love it, no in between.

 

 

Here’s the most fucked up thing about AR’s send-off: when Dirk pulls them out of his sylladex, holding them close, tender and delicate, like cradling a corpse, you can see immediately that they’re almost shattered.

Shaded in red, with lines spidering from the nose piece out, it’s a wonder they haven’t fallen apart at all.

“Careful,” Dirk murmurs as he hands them to Rox, face pinched. He won’t look at you. You don’t have to imagine why.

“Oh sweetie,” she says, gentle as anything, and there is a kindness there in her eyes, the Mom Lalonde you just barely ever got to know. “Don’t you worry your noggin. Ol’ Harley ‘n Ms English are gonna fix him right up.”

Dirk just shrugs. If he has something to say he's not saying it now, and you ain't pushing. It's not really the time for that.

He looks at you, the lift of a chin, and you tip yours an inch, askance. A quick shake of the head, and you nod. He doesn't want to talk about it. That's cool.

Needless to say, Roxy places him delicately as can be, types in the coordinates and sends him out without a hiss, hitch, or stutter.

Simple pop, off he goes.

You worry, just for a moment, something you'd never confess, that something goes wrong.

Then Roxy's phone pings, and she gives you a thumb's up.

That'd be all and good, perhaps, if you cared about the physicality of AR's "body". What you wanna know is if the little fucker's still alive.

And you recognize it almost immediately on Dirk's face, how quickly the tension melts away, eyebrows up, a moment of weakness he might not let anyone else see.

You reach out, knock the back of your knuckles against his elbow. "Good?" you ask. Simple. Straight to the point.

He nods, and you figure he doesn't mean to smile, but it's too late for you to miss the flicker of his teeth, the way it curls up before he can rein it in. "Yeah," and his voice is raw, as if unused. "Yeah, he's. Okay."

Alive, he doesn't say.

You let out a gust of air you didn't know you were holding and when you turn away, you might be smiling.

 

D is already on the roof when you make it back up.

Of course he is, of course he practically exists just to fuck with you, you’re almost certain of it, would be more so if you bothered to know him better than you already do, if you could confirm -

Well.

That don’t matter much now, does it?

It’s hard to think of him as Dave when he sees you, lifts an eyebrow, tips his head in acknowledgment so you know he can see you, he’s happy to see you, he’s just on the phone.

You don’t smile, not even if you kinda want to, just shake your head an inch.

He grins and turns back around.

You guess maybe you’re both just like that.

“Nah,’ he says to whoever’s on the other line. Not a day goes by lately that this dude ain’t on the phone. You’d think it abysmal if you didn’t note it to be about 45% of his job. “Dude, nah. The kid’s birthday is next week, that’s fucked. You think I’m going to miss -” He pales then, mouth curling down, and you’re surprised he doesn’t drop it. When he speaks next, his tone is nasty, that icy tone that matches the look in his eyes you know all too well. “Well just cuz I missed the other sixteen don’t mean I’m missin’ this one.” He drops into an accent when he’s upset, loses the monotone staccato that sticks to his words, false smiles and smooth insincerity. You like it better. “You think I’m anything less than serious about this you clearly ain’t been payin’ attention. I didn’t even go to Snoop’s barbeque this year - yess I’m fucking serious. Call his wife if you don’t goddamn believe me. I ain’t fuckin’ around over here, Williams.”

He glances over his shoulder at you. You raise your eyebrows at him in return. You think he realizes you can hear every fucking word, because his face flushes red and he turns away.

Haha.

That’s a bit more like Dave, you think.

It takes another five minutes for him to lose it, a litany of _“Yeah-no-yeahs,”_ before he snaps a “It’s my birthday too!” and hangs up.

You watch him for a moment, regarding his phone like he’s going to throw it before pressing it to his face, head ducked a half inch. He sighs heavy out his nose, knocks it against his shades. Tap tap.

“You seriously know Snoop?” you say eventually, though maybe you shouldn’t.  It ain’t really any of your business, and you make a living on not being curious.

Dave jump a foot straight up and you wonder briefly if that’s just something all of them are likely to do when you’re nearby.

“Uh,” he says, turning on his heel. He waves his phone away into his sylladex, a mumbled note under his breath, and you don’t comment. Same dex. You hadn’t noticed before. “Yeah, I - I mean obviously yeah.” He waits for you to elaborate but you don’t, mostly because you’re just thinking about how hard Dave’s going to flip when he finds out.

“Cool,” you say.

“Sorry,” he blurts. “That you had to. Hear that. They really want me to come back.” 

You make your way towards the edge of the roof, find that clear spot that ain’t half as bad as the rest of it. “But you don’t want to go.”

“I dunno, guess not.” He shrugs, a quick jostle of the shoulders. His hands curl and uncurl, tension. Stress. No fucking wonder dude smokes so much. “I mean, s’not like I hate it, and they’re definitely some of my happier moments, but fuck me running, it’s a lot more PR heavy than I remember.”

“What’s wrong,” you tease, pulling out the pack you stole from him. “Can’t remember your song and dance?”

“I do remember it,” he sighs, dropping down in a loose pile of limbs, so close he almost elbows you in the teeth. If he’s offended, it doesn’t show. “I just don’t think I want anyone to see me like that again.”

You know how much he... Dirk has spoken with you briefly, how he,

Well it’s fucking embarrassing.

But you think maybe he needs to hear it right now.

You wait for him to speak.

“I know the money don’t make itself, and I know I got a legacy to live up to but - I dunno.” His shoulders drop, spine curving down, and you think he doesn’t look much like a celebrity, or much like a hero at all. He’s just a dude, and he’s exhausted. “I mostly just feel tired. Is that messed up?”

“Nah,” you sigh, hand him a smoke.

He smiles when you light it for him, and you don’t hide the way your mouth moves up a tick.

When he leans towards you, you don’t lean completely away and you think, that’s something like improvement.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just wanted to give a HUGE thank you to everyone who commented last chapter, it meant the world over for me <3  
> special quadruple thanks to my nano cabinmates, [peonies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peonies), [Katreal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katreal), and [Alexharrier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexharrier), without whom I surely would not have gotten so far!!! love you guys sososo much i'm so proud of all of you!!!

**Author's Note:**

> I've been dwelling on it since homestuck ended, and not to be a stick in the mud, but I didn't love the ending? Especially not what they did to Davesprite. I think he's probably struggling a lot with his own agency, how to separate himself from Dave despite still BEING Dave, and that can be hard on a kid?  
> I've also been thinking a lot about how different Dave and DS's views on Bro probably are. Dave was finally exposed to some positive attention and care, whereas Davesprite spent most of his time on the ship struggling with his feelings and lashing out, and I think that that really affected the way they feel about Bro. I guess! Also I'm a sucker for reconciliation.


End file.
